Asia to get restive and have more jobless

Asia to get restive and have more jobless

The pool of jobless and underemployed workers in Asia will
grow bigger and more restive in the coming months, writes
Prangtip Daorueng of Inter Press Service.

BANGKOK: Workers across East Asia, many of them used to
decades of job security, face increasingly uncertain times as the
region's economic slowdown threatens to throw more laborers out
of work in the coming months.

From South Korea to Indonesia, the employment picture is
expected to turn hazy in the coming year as huge financial firms
go under, businesses are unable to expand, public spending is cut
and growth figures are slashed.

Sung Bhoyun of the Korean Workers' Center says many Koreans
are not used to facing the possibility of having no work. "This
is the first experience for our generation," Sung said. "We used
to have very good living conditions better situation than our
parents. They kept telling us that we are the spoiled
generation," Sung said at the 24th World Confederation of Labor
(WCL) Congress held here in December.

While official estimates say the percentage of unemployed
workers in Korea next year should be seven to eight, Kim Dong-ho,
also of the Korean Workers' Center, says unions see the figure
exceeding that.

Major conglomerates or chaebols are implementing salary
freezes and layoffs that in some cases involve 30 percent of
employees. Other firms are cutting pay as much as 30 percent,
believing they are better than outright unemployment in a country
where being jobless is often viewed as shameful.

South Korea's activist labor unions are already restive, and
have been demanding that the government revise stiff conditions
required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which led a
$57 billion bailout of the financially troubled economy in
November.

In exchange for the funds, the Fund has required the South
Korean government to keep growth below five percent, slash the
current account deficit to one percent of GDP from almost three
percent, keep a balanced budget and raise taxes.

"We are expecting that many people will lose their jobs. It
was really sudden and we hadn't prepared for this situation.
Since the IMF is there, it is not going to give us money without
any condition. So we are expecting a lot of requirements," said
Sung. Thai workers are also hurting from the financial meltdown
that struck the country this year, resulting in the collapse of
scores of financial houses and closure of factories. Thai
economists say one to four million people, mostly in urban areas,
are expected to become unemployed over the next year.

And foreign workers who have been wooed to fill factories and
work farms are being sent back home. Thailand's closure of 56
financial firms this month threw 11,000 workers out of work, and
analysts say up to 200,000 finance employees could be jobless
after the restructuring of the sector is completed.

Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians are also expected to lose
their jobs in the next few months, even as prices of basic items
like food are rising.

"The recent economic downturn, in particular in Southeast
Asia, has raised grave concerns over high unemployment," the
International Labor Organisation (ILO) said in a statement
during its Asian regional meeting here in mid December.

In the case of Thailand, labor and social welfare officials
say the government is supporting the return of unemployed workers
to their hometowns or villages to ease urban joblessness.

While Asia's problems are directly tied to labor uncertainty
and restlessness expected in the next few years, some labor
leaders say the crisis has also highlighted the risks that come
with the opening of economies and the need for ways of protecting
workers' interest.

Indeed, globalization as well the role of the IMF in bailing
out troubled Asian economies came under strong criticism at the
World Confederation of Labor Congress.

"Globalization is a kind of unavoidable situation. I think it
is bound to happen. It is happening in one direction from top to
bottom, from western countries to developing countries. There
will be some sacrifice. We have to pay some price, especially the
union movement," said Korea's Kim Dong-ho.

But IMF managing director Michel Camdessus, who was invited to
the congress, said the Fund was not creating economic problems
for Asian countries but that many of them had been adopting wrong
policies ill suited to a global economy. "We are not discouraged
as the results show we are on the right way," he said.

"People are treating the IMF as a scapegoat for their
problems. But the fact is we now have global economy and each
year it is becoming more so. This is not a new process, but has
been developing over these past 50 years," Camdessus said. And
despite Asia's problems, over the years "the results we see are
better growth rates everywhere and higher standard of living", he
added.

The crisis in Asia now is a problem of mismanagement rather
than of globalization itself, Camdessus said. According to him,
despite rapid growth many countries did not spread wealth to the
poorer sectors, resulting in bigger gaps between the rich and
poor. The IMF believes that corruption, state monopolies,
business oligarchies and vested interests are obstacles to
globalization.

But critics argue that what may make economic sense does not
always benefit workers. While economies are advised to open up
and be globally competitive to attract investments that create
jobs, labor standards have not always been set up or respected.

At its regional meeting, the ILO said international standards
have become even more relevant "in today's climate of
globalization, trade liberalization and economic uncertainty".
In a paper at the conference, it said: "Workers are particularly
vulnerable in times of labor contraction and industrial
restructuring."

Experts at the World Confederation of Labor Congress pointed
out that there were no substantial social welfare programs to
help jobless workers. In fact, many said workers in Asia largely
have to bear the costs of globalization of their economies alone,
and that the presence of the IMF is not the answer.

Even without the economic crisis, many Asian countries were
seeing a fall in the number of full time jobs and a rise in
temporary, casual or subcontracted work that often falls outside
legal regulation. In the competition for foreign investment, some
countries have poor working conditions and pay.

Former WCL president Willy Peirens says many economies' free
trade zones with unequal tax levies, low salaries and poor
workers' standards, the growing informal sector and increasing
number of migrant workers, are prime indicators of the problems
within the globalization process.

Asia's economic slowdown is bound to make things harder
because globalization, in the eyes of trade unions, has meant
"weaker negotiating capacity and constant degradation of working
conditions" at a time when there should be even more dialogue.

"It is our understanding that within the IMF some reforms have
already taken place and we want to see that continue. For
instance, the WCL wants to see structured consultations between
the unions and the IMF. Also national unions have to be consulted
in the process of elaborating programs of structural
adjustment," Peirens said.

-- IPS

Window: Even without the economic crisis, many Asian countries were
seeing a fall in the number of full time jobs and a rise in
temporary, casual or subcontracted work that often falls outside
legal regulation.