UNITED NATIONS, Jan 14 (APP): Global unemployment remains stable, but progress toward decent work has stalled, according to a new report from the International Labour Organization (ILO), which warns that young people continue to struggle in a job market which risks being further undermined by AI and trade policy uncertainty.

According to the data compiled for the latest Employment and Social Trends 2026 report, the global unemployment rate is projected to stay stable at around 4.9 per cent this year, equivalent to some 186 million people out of work.

The biggest area of growth is in poorer countries – a reflection of the aging population in richer economies, where fewer people of working age are available to enter or remain in work.

Job growth is projected to be 0.5 per cent in upper middle-income countries as opposed to 3.1 per cent in low-income nations, IL, the Geneva-based UN agency said.

However, being employed is not necessarily the same as having a quality job or a decent wage: nearly 300 million workers are living in extreme poverty, earning less than $3 a day.

It is expected that around 2.1 billion people will be working in the informal sector this year, with limited access to social protection, rights at work, and job security.

The global job situation for young people in low-income countries is described in the report as “daunting”: more than a quarter (27.9 per cent) are neither in education, employment or training.

Educated youth in high-income countries are not immune from uncertainty: the study warns that AI and automation could make it harder for them to find work and calls for “close monitoring” of the technology.

There’s little good news in the report for those fighting for women’s equality in the workplace; the data shows that social norms and stereotypes remain entrenched.

Previous gains have stalled, slowing progress towards gender equality at work, and women are today around 24 per cent less likely than men to participate in the labour force.

In 2025, the global economy was marked by the upheaval in international trade rules and tariff rates, led by the United States.

Trade supports around 465 million workers worldwide, more than half of them in Asia and the Pacific, and the uncertainty is cutting into workers’ wages, especially in Southeast Asia, Southern Asia, and Europe.

Responding to the findings in the report, ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo called for coordinated action and stronger institutions to advance decent work and social justice, particularly in poorer economies that risk being left behind.

“Unless governments, employers, and workers act together to harness technology responsibly and expand quality job opportunities for women and youth – through coherent and coordinated institutional responses – decent work deficits will persist and social cohesion will be at risk,” said Houngbo.

In Asia and the Pacific, ILO said the regional unemployment rate in 2025 was 4.1 per cent, down from 5.1 per cent a decade earlier. Manufacturing employment remains significant: 16.1 per cent of total employment in 2025 overall, 20 percent in Eastern Asia.

According to the report, there are persistent challenges for youth employment, especially in China, where urban youth unemployment reached 17.8 per cent in mid-2025.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 14 (APP): The Israeli-ordered temporary closure of a UN-run health centre in East Jerusalem is the latest phase in “a pattern of deliberate disregard” for international law, the head of the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini said Wednesday.

Israeli forces stormed the UNRWA-operated health centre on Monday and ordered it to close for 30 days, the agency reported. They also demanded the removal of UN signage.

Furthermore, water and electricity supply to multiple UNRWA facilities are scheduled to be cut off in the coming weeks, affecting schools, health centres and other critical buildings.

The development marks “a new step in a pattern of deliberate disregard for international law and the United Nations,” Lazzarini, the UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe tweeted.

“This is a direct result of legislation passed by the Israeli parliament in December, which stepped up existing anti-UNRWA laws adopted in 2024,” he added.

The UNRWA Jerusalem Health Centre serves hundreds of Palestine refugee patients every day, agency spokesperson Jonathan Fowler told UN News, a media website.

“For most of them, it’s their only possibility of having access to primary healthcare,” he said. “So, there’s a right to health involved in this.”

He stressed that UNRWA facilities are United Nations premises, which are protected under international law, and this applies across the globe.

Fowler described the impending water and power shutdown as “kind of an anti-humanitarian gesture in many ways,” saying “it’s particularly shocking.”

He recalled that in October, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) “restated in crystal clear fashion that the State of Israel is obliged under international law to facilitate UNRWA’s operations, not hinder or prevent them. And yet this continues.”

He also warned of the potential wider consequences.

“These are disgraceful moves, And it’s very important that there be global awareness about what’s going on, because this is much more than directly in East Jerusalem,” he said.

“It goes beyond even UNRWA. This is something which potentially has global implications because of this pattern of disregard for international law.”

APP/ift

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 14 (APP): The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a Geneva-based UN agency, has confirmed that 2025 was one of the three warmest years on record, continuing the streak of extraordinary global temperatures.

The past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated, the agency said. After analyzing eight international data-sets, it said that global average surface temperatures last year were 1.44°C above the 1850 to 1900 average.

Two of these data-sets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year.

The fact that 2025 was very slightly cooler than the three-year average from 2023 is partly explained by the La Nina phenomenon, which is associated with colder weather.

But WMO insisted that any temporary cooling from La Nina is not reversing the long-term trend of warmer temperatures.

“The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement.

The organization added that the high temperatures on land and sea last year helped to fuel extreme weather, including heatwaves, heavy rainfall and deadly tropical cyclones, underlining the need for early warning systems.

Citing a separate study, WMO highlighted that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record last year, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system.

Regionally, about 33 per cent of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions, while about 57 per cent fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins.

WMO said it will provide full details of key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat and other trends, in its State of the Global Climate 2025 report to be issued in March.