World - Could lose 20m jobs from financial crisis;ILO

GENEVA: The global financial crisis could cost some 20m jobs worldwide, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) warned on Monday.

ILO Director-General Juan Somavia issued the warning in Geneva, coupled with the advice that "we need prompt and coordinated government actions to avert a social crisis that could be severe, long-lasting and global".

By current calculations, worldwide unemployment could rise from 190 million last year to a level of 210m by the end of 2009.

The number of those people having to exist on less than $1 a day could rise by 40 million, he warned, "and those at $2 a day by more than 100m".

Construction, automotive, tourism, finance, services and real estate would be among the sectors to be hit hardest by the current crisis.

Somavia also said that projections might even be underestimated unless "the effects of the current economic contraction and looming recession are not quickly confronted.

"This is not simply a crisis on Wall Street, this is a crisis on all streets. We need an economic rescue plan for working families and the real economy, with rules and policies that deliver decent jobs. We must link better productivity to salaries and growth to employment," he argued.