Unemployment in some of the world’s biggest economies eased in July but remains higher than it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The unemployment rate in the group's 37 member countries fell from 8 per cent in June to 7.7 per cent in July, the organisation said in a report on Wednesday.
However, the two figures were higher by 2.5 percentage points than the rate in February.
Although the unemployment rate among youth aged 15 to 24 declined by 0.6 percentage points in July, it remained 4.9 percentage points higher than February.
The outbreak, which disrupted global trade and halted air travel, has dealt a huge blow to the labour market.
Earlier this year, the OECD said the impact of the pandemic on the workforce of its member countries was 10 times larger than during the first three months of the 2008 financial crisis.
The OECD includes some of the world’s biggest economies such as the US, euro-area countries, the UK and Canada.
The organisation expects the unemployment rate in member countries to hit 9.4 per cent this year, from 5.3 per cent last year, if the outbreak is kept under control.
However, it could reach 12.6 per cent if there is a second wave of infections.
The state of employment also differed widely across various regions, the OECD said.
The unemployment rate in the euro area rose for a fourth consecutive month to 7.9 per cent in July, up from 7.7 per cent a month earlier.
Meanwhile, unemployment in Japan rose marginally to 2.9 per cent from 2.8 per cent in June.
However, the unemployment rate in the US and Canada fell by 1.4 percentage points and 0.9 percentage points to 10.9 per cent and 10.2 per cent, respectively.
The OECD attributed this to a fall in temporary redundancies.
Furthermore, early data in the first 15 days of August also pointed to continued declines in temporary redundancies, pushing unemployment down to 10.2 per cent in Canada and 8.4 per cent in the US.
The group said in June that it expected the world economy to shrink by 6 per cent this year before growing by 5.2 per cent in 2021, if the virus is contained.
The World Bank forecast a 5.2 per cent contraction for this year while the International Monetary Fund projected that output would shrink by 4.9 per cent.
In the event of a second wave of infections, the OECD expects the world economy to contract by 7.6 per cent before growing by 2.8 per cent in 2021.
OECD economies suffered the worst contraction on record in the second quarter of this year as economic activity slowed due to the pandemic.
Real gross domestic product for the three months to the end of June fell by 9.8 per cent, compared to a contraction of 0.9 per cent in the first quarter, the group said last month.
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Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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A list of the animal rescue organisations in the UAE
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Rating: 4/5
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Wayne Rooney 53
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Jimmy Greaves 44
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
