Political economy and employment, effects of the financial crisis 2008-2009

One of the worse consequences of the financial crisis was the unemployment increase. According with the International Labor Organization between the years 2007 and 2009, the number of unemployed in the world passed from 177.7 millions of persons to 211.5 millions and the projection for the year 2010 is of 213.4 millions.
It is in the developed economies and in the countries of the European Union where the impact of the crisis was felt with most intensity. According with the ILO Global Employment Trends, January 2010, the number of unemployed in the developed economies and the European Union passed from 29 millions of persons in the year 2007 to 45.6 millions in 2010, 57% more in only two years. In the following table you can appreciate the change in the unemployment rates between the years 2000 and 2009.

These figures confirm that was in the developed nations and in Europe (Western and Eastern) where the financial crisis affected more the employment.
In September 2008 the crisis exploited with the collapse of one of the most important investment banks of the United States and since that moment began a chain of banks downfall in that country and in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom and Germany. The financial crisis it became in a social crisis and thousands of people loosed their homes, their goods and jobs in the rest of the world because of the relations of dependence and complementary between the economies.
The figures of unemployment in the United States are enough illustrative of the reality.

In the United States the unemployment passed from 7 millions of persons in the year 2007 to 14.2 millions in the year 2009, seven millions more in hardly two years, it means 100% more. These figures reveal the magnitude and effects of the financial crisis.
It do not reflect all the true
The official figures of the national and international agencies do not reflect the total unemployment reality. For a simple reason: those figures includes as employed the self-employed people, the workers of the informal sector of the economy and the workers that do not have legal rights. If these workers are excluded of the statistics of employed the unemployment figures would be very different. Important amounts of this type of workers exist in the underdeveloped nations, where millions of workers are out of the formal economy.
A growing demand
According with the International Labor Organization document “Recovering of the crisis, a global job pact”, page IV, of June 2009, “45 million new entrants to the global jobs market annually --most of them young women and men—some 300 million new jobs will need to be created from now to 2015 just to keep pace with the growth in the labor force…”
Is it possible to reach that goal?
The experience demonstrates that there is a gap between the supply and demand of employment.
The creation of jobs is linked to the economic expansion. Nevertheless, it is necessary to say that the modern economy is dominated by the intensive use of the resources of capital that –by mean of the technology-- everyday reduce the employment of workers; they are substituted by machines. That is the global trend.
The traditional economy sustains their development in the principle of the most benefit. The economy is very practice and would not change that concept by humanitarian reasons, as the creation of jobs. So that a change in the policy of intensive use of the resources of capital do not seems likely so far.
Other obstacle for the creation of jobs is the situation of the natural resources. A global shortage of resources as water and petroleum are already visible. The abundance of these vital resources is concentrated in too few regions of the globe: the petroleum in the Middle East and Venezuela and the water in the Amazonian region, but both resources are overexploited.
In South America coexist two contradictory phenomenons: the abundance of water in the Amazonian region of Brazil and the scarcity of water in the neighbors’ territories of Bolivia and Peru, as a consequence of the destruction of the Andes glaciers that provide the water to those regions.
The Inter American Bank of Development considers that in 5 or 6 years the Andes glaciers will disappear. It was assured by Juan Pablo Bonilla, Chief of the Climatic Change Department during the Annual Meeting of Governors of the bank in Cancun, March 2010.
The Andes glaciers are part of the mountain system of South America and are present in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and part of Venezuela.
A similar situation occurs with the glaciers of Himalaya that feed the main rivers of Asia; so that the crisis of water is a global problem that will be more intense in the coming years, affecting the live of the people and the economy.
A different vision
If there is not a change in the political and economical vision the problems of humanity will acquire an unmanageable dimension.
For example, it is necessary a new approach of the economy. The financial benefit must not be the most important objective of the economy and the business. The economy and the business should take in account the ecological and social consequences of the economic activities.
The scientist and technological development is something essential, but it is something essential also to give employment and just wages to the world population. It must have a balance between the economic objectives and the social reality; for that reason the economy should favor the technologies that give more employments to the workers.
Those technologies should consider also the ecological dimension. The pattern of consumption of natural resources employed until now is unsustainable at long term; the best example is how the forests have been destroyed in the entire world. We are now paying the consequences of the depredation.
In the Millennium Goals should be included in the first places the recovery of the forests. That is the unique form of to keep the live at long term.
The creation of ecological employments is a road for to achieve the economic and environment objectives. For example, the establishment of a Global Program of Reforestation sponsored by the international agencies and the governments is a way for benefit the world population. Millions of new jobs may be created through that program.
Other similar ideas might contribute to generate wellbeing for the citizens of the world. The political economy of the 21st century should have as main objective these proposals.