World unemployment could rise by 40 million

The United Nations labor agency says that the global credit crisis could make another 40 million people unemployed. That would put the number of unemployed to it's highest level in a decade. Bringing the total number to somewhere between 210 million and 230 million.

In this Associated Press article that we found in the International Herald Tribune, we are told what effects this will have on the working poor in the world.

If the worst case scenario materializes, around 200 million more people would become working poor — unable to earn more than $2 per person a day.

In this outlook, the total number of working poor would be 812 million, or 26.8 percent of the world's work force, the report said, using poverty estimates by the World Bank.

In 2007, some 609.5 million were working poor — 20.6 percent of the world's work force at the time.

In addition to fiscal and monetary interventions, the world economy also needs creative measures improving the social situation of workers, the report said.

"There is a need to focus measures on vulnerable groups in the labor market, such as youth and women, who are most likely to be pushed into poverty and find themselves trapped there for many years," it said.