SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

If your research contributes to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth add the keyword "SDG8", "SDG8: Decent Work and Economic Growth" and/or "Sustainable Development Goals" to your article/book/chapter/conference paper/ dataset and we will automatically add it to this rapidly growing collection of research outputs. See the instructions here. 

Even before the current crisis, the global economy was growing at a slower rate than in previous years notwithstanding improvements in labour productivity and unemployment. The pandemic has abruptly and profoundly disrupted it, pushing the world into a recession. The unprecedented shock to the world’s labour markets is expected to result in a decrease of around 10.5 per cent in aggregate working hours in the second quarter of 2020, equivalent to 305 million full-time workers. Small and medium enterprises, workers in informal employment, the self-employed, daily wage earners and workers in sectors at the highest risk of disruption have been hit the hardest.

In 2018, the rate of growth of global real GDP per capita was 2 per cent. In addition, the rate for least developed countries was 4.5 per cent in 2018, less than the 7 per cent growth rate targeted in the 2030 Agenda. The pandemic is pushing the world into the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression.

After a brief interruption during the global economic downturn of 2008–2009, labour productivity has continued to grow; in 2019, it increased by 1.4 per cent from the previous year.

Globally, 61 per cent of workers were in informal employment in 2016. The need to rely on informal employment was more prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia, where 89 per cent and 86 per cent of workers, respectively, were in such employment. Owing to the unemployment and underemployment caused by the current crisis, some 1.6 billion workers in the informal economy, half of the global workforce, are affected significantly. Globally, the income of informal workers is estimated to fall by 60 per cent in the first months of the crisis.

Data on average hourly earnings cast light on income inequality. In a global study conducted by the International Labour Organization, a factor-weighted gender pay gap of 19 per cent in 2017 was revealed.

In 2019, the global unemployment rate stood at 5 per cent, with the highest rate, 11 per cent, in Northern Africa and Western Asia. The rate was considerably higher among young workers than for adults in all regions in 2019, with the difference reaching 18 percentage points in Northern Africa and Western Asia, 15 percentage points in Central and Southern Asia and 12 percentage points in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In 2019, 22 per cent of the world’s young people were not in employment, education or training, a figure that has hardly changed since 2005.

In 2018, aid for trade commitments remained stable, at $58 billion, based on current prices. South and Central Asia received the highest share thereof (31.4 per cent), followed by sub-Saharan Africa (29.2 per cent). Lower-middle-income countries received 37.5 per cent of aid for trade, followed by least developed countries (36.8 per cent).

According to data for 2019 from 102 countries, 98 per cent had a youth employment strategy or a plan to develop one in the near future.

Source: Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, Report of the Secretary-General, https://undocs.org/en/E/2020/57

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If your research contributes to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth add the keyword "SDG 8", "SDG8: Decent Work and Economic Growth" and/or "Sustainable Development Goals" to your article/book/chapter/conference paper/ dataset and we will automatically add it to this rapidly growing collection of research outputs. See the instructions here: 

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