Trade and development report 2010: employment, globalization and development

The Trade and Development Report 2010 focuses on the need to make employment creation a priority in economic policy. Unemployment is the most pressing social and economic problem of our time, not least because, especially in developing countries, it is closely related to poverty. The fallout from the global crisis has exacerbated what were already sluggish labour markets in most countries even before the crisis erupted. The Report warns that a premature withdrawal of macroeconomic stimulus measures to expand demand in developed countries may trigger a deflationary spiral in the global economy, with attendant slumps in growth and employment. Furthermore, the pattern of the recovery resembles that of imbalanced global demand growth that contributed to the build-up of the crisis. The lack of macroeconomic policy coherence among the major economies causes global current-account imbalances to re-emerge. This, together with other remaining systemic shortcomings, such as insufficiently regulated financial markets, carries the danger of a double-dip recession.