Millions of jobs lost in tourism worldwide

The World Labor Organization (WLO), still assessing the fallout of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, reported the loss of 10.5 million jobs worldwide in the travel and tourist sectors.

In a document entitled World Employment Trends, the WLO stated the situation has been worse off all around the globe in the past 24 months and chances of a snapback in the course of the ongoing year are pretty slim.

Latin America and the Caribbean were the two regions hit the hardest by the world economic slowdown in 2001 where unemployment rate peaked roughly 10 percent as fewer people were joining the rank and file of the area’s workforce.

The WLO indicated joblessness among youngsters (it reached 16 percent in 2001) is one the challenges Latin America and the Caribbean are facing up to, coupled with the fact that almost all new jobs for that segment of the population are pigeonholed in the informal economy

At a world level, the most affected sectors were those with the largest workforces, like fashion design. That plunge in employment opportunities fell deeper among women since female workers usually make up the largest chunk of company payrolls in the industry.

Crumbling confidence among investors –the report points out- laid bare the financial brittleness of some countries, a situation that left scores of people jobless. A case in point is Argentina, where unemployment soared 20 percent during 2002 and touched off a chain reaction that spilled over to the neighboring countries.

Armed conflicts and violence also chipped in their own to the increase of unemployment and poverty, while the meltdown of the U.S. economy, the sluggish recovery of the European Union and the Japanese recession are also putting on the brakes on any possible growth for the developing world.