A report from the UN's International Labour Organisation predicts that global unemployment will finally fall below pre-pandemic levels in 2023 – but only in high-income countries, which have recovered faster from Covid and other crises.
Some 191 million people around the world will be unemployed this year, according to the ILO's annual employment report, published this week.
That's 5.3 percent of the global workforce compared to 5.4 percent in 2022 and 5.5 percent in 2019, and represents an extra million workers back in employment this year.
Most of the recovery, however, is limited to high-income countries that have recovered more quickly than expected from the economic impacts of the Covid pandemic.
In low-income countries, the rate stands at 5.7 percent – the same as last year and higher than in 2019, when it was 5.2 percent.
Africa, Middle East worst hit
The divide is especially stark between regions, with poorer countries in Africa and the Middle East struggling hardest to bounce back.
Unemployment in North Africa (11.2 percent), the Arab states (9.3 percent) and sub-Saharan Africa (6.3 percent) is expected to remain higher this year than it did in 2019.
In contrast, Europe, South-East Asia, Central and Western Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean have all managed to reduce joblessness below pre-Covid levels.
Meanwhile, North America and East Asia have seen it increase slightly since 2019 while still remaining lower than in most other regions at less than 5 percent.
The ILO also measured the "jobs gap" – people who want to work but don't have a job, as opposed to only those registered as unemployed – and found the differences even more pronounced.
It projects that low-income countries will face the largest jobs gap rate at 21.5 percent, while the rate in high-income countries stands at just 8.2 percent.
Successive crises
The ILO puts the divide down to "mutually reinforcing crises" that disproportionately affect developing countries, including Covid, the war in Ukraine, energy shortages, high inflation, the rising cost of debt and natural disasters.
Sri Lanka, for instance, had its tourism industry laid low by Covid and has since struggled to repay loans or import essential goods due to rising interest rates and soaring prices.
And the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria in February wiped out hundreds of thousands of work places in countries already battling inflation and in Syria's case, a long civil war.
The ILO's director general, Gilbert F Houngbo, called for international support to help increase social protection in poorer countries, especially old-age pensions, which he suggested would provide knock-on benefits for the economy.
"The findings of this report are a stark reminder of growing global inequalities. Investing in people through jobs and social protection will help narrow the gap between rich and poor nations and people," he said.
