Reserve Army of Labour - A Global Reserve Army of Labour?

A Global Reserve Army of Labour?

Marx was writing in the mid-19th century, and his discussion of unemployment may therefore be, in part, out of date, particularly when viewed only at the national level. However, his analysis may continue to be valid if considered globally. The ILO reports that the proportions of world unemployment are steadily increasing.

• Half of all workers in the world - some 1.4 billion working poor - currently live in families that survive on less than US$2 a day per person. They work in the vast informal sector - from farms to fishing, from agriculture to urban alleyways - without benefits, social security or health care. 633 million workers and their families were living on less than USD 1.25 per day in 2008, with as many as 215 million additional workers living on the margin and at risk of falling into poverty in 2009.

• Unemployment in terms of actual people out of work is at its highest point ever and continues to rise. In the last ten years, official unemployment has grown by more than 25% and now stands at 212 million worldwide, or 6.6% of the global workforce. Unemployed and under-employed together total about a billion people. "Underemployed" means generally that workers are unable to find enough paid work to earn sufficient money to live on, i.e. that they work part-time or in casual jobs. This is sometimes called precarious work or contingent labor. But some underemployment concerns skilled workers, who prefer to work less hours because their relatively high salary enables them to do so.

• Among the world's unemployed, the ILO estimates that about half the global total are young people aged 15 to 24. In the rich countries, it often does not matter so much if young people are unemployed at that age, but in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America, where most of the unemployed youths are, it is often a much more serious problem.