Employmentweb_low

EMployMEnT, worK, and HEalTH inEqualiTiEs - a global perspective
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The impacT of The recenT economic crisis
although neo-liberalism and the deregulation of the financial sector
have barely been criticised in public health (muntaner, Lynch, &
smith, 2001; Benach & muntaner, 2005), the magnitude of class
inequalities and the rate at which they have increased have been
fuelled by 30 years of these policies. in 2008, the melt-down in the
financial sector, which arose from speculative investment practices
(themselves a symptom of much deeper structural problems),
rapidly impacted the economies of both rich and poor countries.
While the exact extent and likely length of the economic recession
are still unknown, it is now being acknowledged as the greatest
upheaval since the Great Depression of the 1930s. in our own view,
parallels with the Great Depression, such as significant levels of
unemployment and large-scale human misery, will only grow
stronger as events unfold. The economic crisis is relevant to the
issues presented in this book on a number of grounds.
first and most obviously, the global economic crisis is
contributing to a growth of unemployment (and under-employment)
and employment arrangements that we have identified as healthdamaging
in this book. The economic crisis that came to the world’s
forefront in september 2008 has dramatically increased the number
of unemployed people. in its most recent Key indicators of the Labour
market (KiLm) (iLo, 2009a), the iLo projected that global
unemployment could increase by up to 61 million people between
2007 and 2009, while the number of vulnerable workers and those at
risk of slipping into poverty could increase by 108 million and 222
million respectively. The negative social, economic and health
impacts of these changes will be greatest in poorer countries, where
few of the working age population can afford not to work, there is
little or no income support or welfare, and often heavily indebted
governments have been least able to fund labour market stimulus
packages (cazes, Verick, & heuer, 2009: 10). according to the iLo,
the number of working poor may rise to up to 1.4 billion, or 45 per
cent of all the world’s employed, while the proportion of people in
vulnerable employment could rise considerably to a level of 53 per
cent of the employed population (iLo, 2009a; 2009b). even neo-liberal
agencies like the organization for economic cooperation and
Development (oecD) have been obliged to continuously revise their
estimates of global unemployment upwards in an effort to appear
relevant and informed. By march 2009, the oecD was predicting
unemployment would approach double-digit figures amongst its 30
rich country members by 2010 (o’neil, 2009). in the Us, overall
unemployment reached 9 per cent by march 2009 (and far exceeded