Advanced economies continue to face high or rising unemployment

The United Nations on Monday reported encouraging, but still-fragile signs of improvement in emerging and developing economies, while a lot of advanced economies continue to face high or even rising unemployment and increasing inequalities. The International Labor Organization (ILO) made the statement in a report released on Monday, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters here. "According to the World of Work report 2013, income inequalities rose between 2010 and 2011 in 14 of the 26 advanced economies surveyed, including France, Denmark, Spain and the United States," Nesirky said at a daily news briefing here. "The report shows that middle-income groups in many advanced economies are shrinking, fueled in part by long-term unemployment, weakening job quality and workers dropping out of the labor market altogether," he said. As the global economy continues a slow recovery from the financial crisis, most emerging and developing countries are experiencing rising employment and narrowing income inequalities compared to their high-income counterparts, the report said. However, the gap between rich and poor in most low and middle- income countries remains wide, the report said, adding that many families who have managed to rise above the poverty line are at risk of lapsing back. By contrast, income inequalities have increased in advanced economies over the past two years, against the backdrop of increasing global unemployment -- predicted to rise from the current 200 million to nearly 208 million by 2015, said the report.