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| By Brian Halweil and Lester R. Brown
As global population rushes toward 6 billion--and beyond--national governments face the daunting task of creating nearly 30 million additional jobs each year for the next fifty years. Although Americans will celebrate Labor Day on Monday, September 6 with unemployment at a near record low, unemployment in the rest of the world is at an all-time high.
Failure to absorb the record number of new job seekers could fuel political instability as rising numbers of jobless youth strain the social fabric. In the absence of an accelerated effort to slow population growth in the years ahead, unemployment could soar to unmanageable levels. Since mid-century, the world's labor force--those between the ages of 15 and 65 seeking work--has expanded from 1.2 billion people in 1950 to nearly 3 billion in 1999. Over the same period, the world's total population surged from 2.5 to 6 billion. Unfortunately, the number of new jobs has not kept pace with the increasing number of job seekers. The United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that over 1 billion people, about one third of the global work force, are unemployed or underemployed (involuntarily working substantially less than full time, or earning less than a living wage). Persistent high levels of unemployment in many European nations with stable populations indicate the policy challenges of providing jobs even without rapid population growth.
The interaction between population growth and jobs is most acute in nations with young populations. Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, Zambia, and other nations with more than half of their population below the age of 25 will feel the burden of this labor flood. In the Middle East and Africa, 40 percent of the population is under the age of 15. Nations are straining to educate and train rapidly growing numbers of young people in marketable skills for the global workplace. But even so, many young people are facing dismal job prospects. Worldwide, the ILO estimates that currently there are 60 million people between the ages of 15 and 24 who are in search of work but cannot find it. And in most societies, unemployment for those under 25 is substantially higher than for older people. Nowhere is the employment challenge greater than in Africa, where 40 percent of the population lives in absolute poverty and where underemployment is already the norm. Although 9 million people entered the sub-Saharan work force in 1999, in just two decades this resource-scarce region will have to absorb more than 16 million new entrants each year. Over the next half-century, Nigeria's labor force is projected to nearly triple, and Ethiopia's to nearly quadruple. As a result of unprecedented population growth and increasing acceptance of female participation in the work force, the number of people seeking work in the Middle East and North Africa, a region plagued by double-digit unemployment rates, will double in the next 50 years. Rising numbers of jobless young people will add to existing political tensions in the region. In Algeria, a rapidly growing country already wrapped in turmoil, 22 percent of the work force is unemployed. Asia will also see phenomenal increases in the numbers seeking work. For example, Pakistan's work force is projected to grow from 72 million in 1999 to 199 million by 2050. Over the next 25 years, India will add nearly 10 million to its work force each year--a cumulative addition nearly as great as the current US population. Having slowed its population growth dramatically, larger China is adding only 6 million workers annually. Even so, the rush of migrants to China's coastal cities and massive layoffs from state-run operations are compounding work shortages. The population seeking work in the industrial world will actually decline slightly over the coming decades, as couples are choosing to have smaller families and as the population ages. However, in the United States, one of the few industrial nations where population continues to swell, the work force will grow from 139 million in 1999 to 162 million in 2050, adding roughly half a million job seekers each year. In a situation of labor surplus, the quality of jobs may suffer, for workers will settle for lower wages, longer hours, fewer benefits, and less control over work activities. As global economic integration proceeds, surplus labor anywhere can weaken labor's bargaining power everywhere. Rapid technological developments and globalization have also decreased demand for some kinds of labor. The increasing mechanization of agriculture has reduced labor needs on the farm--where most of the world still derives its food and income--while the flood of cheap food imports as economies liberalize can undermine rural livelihoods altogether. Historically, surplus farmland served as a source of employment for growing populations, as new land could be brought under the plow to generate work, income, and sustenance. However, with the frontiers of agricultural expansion largely gone by 1950, global cropland per person has dropped by half since then. Moreover, the global exodus of job seekers from the countryside fuels the already high unemployment in many cities. Creating jobs in an urban world will require massive investment to accelerate employment growth in the industrial and service sectors.
In many regions, recent employment creation has come at the expense of job quality. Some 80 to 90 percent of new jobs in Latin America are in the informal sector--the underbelly of the economy characterized by low wages, poor working conditions, and little job security. The informal sector also accounts for 60 percent of employment in urban Africa.
As capital becomes increasingly mobile, corporations are shifting new investments to developing countries with their large pool of low cost labor. Viewed as a threat to workers in the industrial world, this shifting capital has helped create jobs in developing countries. China has been among the most successful nations in attracting such foreign capital. A combination of high domestic savings, record inflows of investment capital, and slow population growth created a record number of jobs and boosted incomes four-fold from 1980 to 1998. Employment is the key to obtaining food, housing, health services, and education, in addition to providing self-respect and self-fulfillment. But in scores of countries rapid population growth is bringing greater unemployment, more people living in poverty, and more political instability. Traditionally, governments have relied on economic policy to create jobs, but now those facing continued rapid population growth will need to rely on population policy as well. Achieving full employment is inseparably linked to efforts to stabilize population. Enhanced domestic and international support for family planning services, reproductive health care, the education of young women and men, and other efforts to stabilize population will yield the dual benefits of better living conditions and brighter job prospects in the next century. Brian Halweil is a staff researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based research institute. Lester R. Brown is President of Worldwatch Institute. Visit Worldwatch's web page on population |
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