By Our Foreign Correspondent
Geneva, Sept 06 (IVC) Inequality is on the rise as the share of labor income has stagnated worldwide and a large share of youth remain out of employment, education or training, according to the International Labor Organisation’s (ILO) World Employment and Social Outlook: September 2024 Update report released here on Sept 04.
A major reason for this fall in labor income is artificial intelligence or AI, it said
The ILO analyzed the impact of technological innovations over the last two decades across 36 countries and said that while these innovations have produced persistent increases in labor productivity and output they can also reduce the labor income share.
“This is inconsistent with automation-based technological innovations driving the aggregate effects”, ILO said., warning that the absence of a stronger policy response across a wide range of relevant domains could push the labor income still further down. To mitigate the potential adverse impacts on inequality, the benefits of technological progress should be widely distributed, it said.
The report also indicated slow progress on key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as their headline approaches. The report revealed that the global labor income share, which represents the portion of total earned by workers, fell by 0.6 percentage points from 2019 to 2022 and has since remained flat, compounding a long downward trend.
