Seven Lean Years by Prakash Loungani published by IMF (3/2015).
“The global economy is in slow recovery from peak unemployment thanks to governments’ vigorous policy responses
The onset of the Great Recession in 2007 led to job losses around the world not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. By 2010, 30 million more people had joined the ranks of the unemployed. About three-quarters of this increase took place in high-income economies.
Emerging markets and low-income countries, which in the past have borne the brunt of global recessions, were more resilient this time. In emerging markets the unemployment rate barely budged—an increase of only 0.25 percentage point by 2010—and in low-income economies it actually declined.
Since 2010, the global economy has mounted a slow and uneven recovery. The global unemployment rate has now returned to its 2007 pre–Great Recession level of about 5 1/2 percent. In the high-income group—member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)—it shot up to 8 1/2 percent in 2010 and has slowly inched back to 7 1/2 percent (see Chart 1, left panel). Although employment grew at a fast pace in the United States over the past year, it remained relatively flat in the euro area, the region largely responsible for the anemic recovery in global employment (see Chart 1, right panel)…”
