The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its annual employment outlook published on Tuesday called its 30 member states for efficient policies to encourage employment to reap benefits of globalization.

"Job losses in some sectors, along with new job opportunities in other sectors, are an inevitable accompaniment of the process of globalisation," the OECD says. "The challenge is to ensure that the adjustment process involved in matching available workers with new job openings works as smoothly as possible."

The Paris-based organization urges governments to ensure that working is more rewarding financially than living off welfare and provide adequate income support in the event of job loss and help job-seekers find new jobs quickly by providing effective counselling, training and other re-employment assistance.

According to the OECD, about 35 percent of people of working age are jobless, and there are few signs of a significant improvement in the next two years.

There would be some 36 million job-seekers in 2006, or 6.4 percent of the labor force, compared with 37 million in 2004, or 6.7 percent of the labour force, it notes.

It imputes the rising job insecurity to rising imports, outflows of foreign direct investment, inflows of immigrants, as well as rapid integration into the world trading system of China and India with their huge pools of low-wage labor, and the recent enlargement of the European Union that have all fuelled fears of job losses and wage cuts.

It points out that only a fraction of job losses recorded in OECD countries is likely to be directly attributable to trade and investment liberalisation. "Failure to acknowledge the worker adjustment challenges of globalisation, and to implement much-needed reforms, may erode public support for open trade policies," it warns.

Source: Xinhua