Title: If you think the system is working ...ask someone who isn’t
Subtitle: World Unemployment
Date: 1994
Source: Retrieved on 18th November 2021 from struggle.ws
Notes: Originally published in the Industrial Worker. Re-published in Workers Solidarity No. 43 — Autumn 1994.
Mirror of: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/industrial-workers-of-the-world-if-you-think-the-system-is-working-ask-someone-who-isn-t.muse

Industrial Workers of the World

If you think the system is working ...ask someone who isn’t
World Unemployment

NEARLY ONE out of three workers in the world’s labour force either has no job or is earning too little to live decently, the International Labour Organisation reports. The United Nations organisation calls the situation “the worst global employment criosis since the Great Depression of the 1930s”. The ILO said 120 million people are registered as unemployed around the world and millions more are either tired of looking for work or never bothered to register.

“Practically half of the 35 million unemployed workers in Western Europe have been off the employment rolls for a year or more”, said ILO Director General, Michael Hansenne. His report estimates another 700 million are underemployed, earning less than needed to support a minimum standard of living.

According to UN figures, the average income of the world’s 5.5 billion people may have fallen slightly in 1993 — for the fourth year in a row.