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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 23, 1993                   TAG: 9303230065
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: GENEVA                                LENGTH: Medium

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IN GLOBAL JOB MAP, ASIA'S A LONELY STAR

Unemployment rate `stubbornly high' in world's richest countries, U.N. says

The United States and much of Europe are still struggling with recession, and only Asia has a healthy outlook for growth in jobs, a U.N. agency said Tuesday.

Africa faces the worst problems, with unemployment rates in its cities of 15 percent to 20 percent, the International Labor Organization said. It estimated 14 million Africans are out of work and said their ranks have been rising about 10 percent a year.

Latin America has made some progress from its severe economic problems of the mid-1980s, the report said. Inflation has dropped, economies are growing and investors are returning, but unemployment remains "stubbornly high," at around 8 percent, it said.

Even the Arab states, no longer cushioned by high oil prices, "are suffering from a severe slowdown," the report said.

The world's richest countries "are taking a long time to emerge from recession," the agency said in its annual World Labor Report.

The United States, Japan and some European countries reported an increased number of jobs in 1992, but those gains were offset by substantial job losses in Germany, Britain, Spain, Switzerland and Scandinavia, the report said.

The 24 wealthiest countries, which make up the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, reported a total of 32.3 million people out of work. That was an overall unemployment rate of 8.2 percent, up from 7.4 percent in 1991.

The story is different for the developing nations of Asia. Their overall economic growth was 5.8 percent in 1991, compared with 2.1 percent for all developing countries, the report said, citing China, Malaysia and Thailand as having the fastest-growing economies in Asia.

Dutch economist Wouter van Ginneken, editor-in-chief of the report, said no one has an accurate global jobless rate. But he estimated the world's unemployed number roughly 110 million.

If the jobless are combined with people who work but earn less than poverty wages, some 600 million to 700 million people are unemployed or underemployed, he said. That is a little more than one-third of the world's work force.

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