Endnotes

¹The “developing Asia” region is an IMF regional grouping and is comprised of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, People’s Republic of China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Kiribati, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Viet Nam. The “newly industrialized Asian economies” region is comprised of Hong Kong, China; Republic of Korea; Singapore; and Taipei,China.

²The government of the PRC recently stated that around 20 million internal migrant workers—more than 15% of the estimated 130 million internal migrant workers—lost their jobs in recent months. While many of these workers will take up some form of employment to offset lost income and therefore not be unemployed in the statistical sense, this figure is indicative of a rapid decline in labor demand and the reality of rising unemployment and underemployment, reduced hours, and weakening job security (Johnson and Batson 2009). See: Ian Johnson and Andrew Batson: “China’s Migrants See Jobless Ranks Soar”, The Wall Street Journal, 3 February 2009.

³From the number of layoffs reported between 1 October 2008 and 14 May 2009, it appears that around 75% of retrenchments are permanent, while 25% of retrenchments took place under voluntary separation schemes.

⁴For further discussion, see: Section 1 and Manolo Abella and Geoffrey Ducanes: The Effect of the Global Economic Crisis on Asian Migrant Workers and Government Responses, ILO Technical Note (Bangkok, ILO, 2009).

⁵Migration flows from developing countries may slow as a result of the global economic crisis (Ratha, Mohapatra, and Xu 2008). see: Dilip Ratha, Sanket Mohapatra and Zhimei Xu: Outlook for Remittance Flows 2008-2010: Growth expected to moderate significantly, but flows to remain resilient, Migration and Development Brief No. 8 (Washington, DC, World Bank, November 2008).

⁶For a discussion of this definition of vulnerable employment, refer to ILO: Global Employment Trends: January 2009 (Geneva, 2009), p. 14. It must be noted that wage workers (employees) can also carry a high economic risk—particularly casual wage workers and workers on temporary contracts, who are often the first to be dismissed in downsizing.

⁷According to a recent report, 95% of returning migrant workers are unskilled and have low educational qualifications (Johnson and Batson 2009; Rabinovitch 2008). See: Ian Johnson and Andrew Batson: “China’s Migrants See Jobless Ranks Soar”, The Wall Street Journal, 3 February 2009; Simon Rabinovitch: “China’s great migration wrenched back by crisis”, International Herald Tribune, 30 December 2008.

⁸If the proportion of women and men in vulnerable employment were equal, data points in Figure 3 would fall on the 45 degree line.

⁹Research in urban China suggests that women’s job-search efforts are handicapped by a lack of social networks, unequal entitlement to social reemployment services,, and other factors, causing them to be unemployed longer (Du and Dong 2009) . See: Fenglian Du and Xiao-yuan Dong: “Why do women have longer durations of unemployment than men in post-restructuring China?”, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 33(2), pp. 233-252.

¹⁰For a discussion on dualism in the informal economy, namely easy-entry versus upper-tier informal activities, see: Gary S. Fields: “Labour Market Modeling and the Urban Informal Sector: Theory and Evidence,” in David Turnham, Bernard Salomé, and Antoine Schwarz, eds., The Informal Sector Revisited. (Paris: Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 1990).

¹¹See: ILO: Global Employment Trends Update, (Geneva, May 2009). Available at: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_106504.pdf. Details on the methodologies used in constructing the scenarios are provided in Annex 1.

¹²The lower bound estimate represents a decrease in the share of vulnerable employment. This estimate is based on the historical relationship between economic growth and vulnerable employment. Because the current crisis represents a clear break in the historical series, this scenario is not viewed as likely in the absence of considerably better-than-expected economic growth and labor market outcomes.

¹³A review of members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) suggests that, under normal circumstances, fiscal multipliers are around 1 for public spending and half that for tax measures, with lower multipliers in more open economies (OECD 2009). See: OECD: OECD Economic Outlook (Paris, OECD, 2009).

¹⁴Pakistan plans to increase spending on social protection from 0.3% of GDP in 2008 to 0.9% of GDP in 2009 and is expected to expand the coverage of electricity subsidies for the poor and other poverty-alleviation measures through the Benazir Income Support Programme (IMF Survey Online 2008). See: “Pakistan Gets $7.6 Billion Loan from IMF”, IMF Survey Online, 24 November 2008.

¹⁵Examples include multi-stakeholder meetings in the Philippines, sector-specific tripartite discussions in India, and a tripartite agreement through the National Wages Council in Singapore.

¹⁶This stance was supported by global trade unions (ITUC, TUAC, and Global Unions 2008). See: ITUC, TUAC and Global Unions: Trade Union Statement to the ‘G20 Crisis Summit’: The Global Unions ‘Washington Declaration’ (November 2008).

¹⁷A self-targeting scheme introduced under the Thai fiscal package uses subsidies for low-quality public transport, for which demand falls as income increases.

¹⁸At the end of 2008, the government of the Philippines introduced the youth education–youth employability (YE-YE) project in partnership with the Jollibee fast food chain. The objective of the partnership is to provide opportunities for the children of informal sector workers and child laborers to pursue a post-secondary course through tuition fee advances while obtaining practical training in the workplace. The YE-YE project targets helping 100,000 children in 2 years (Department of Labor and Employment 2008). See: Department of Labour and Employment web site, Weathering the Crisis through Well-placed Programs, 24 December 2008, www.dole.gov.ph/news/details.asp?id=N000002269.

¹⁹The Singaporean government has allocated US$3 billion to the Jobs Credit Scheme, under which employers will receive wage support for each employee on the enterprise’s payroll. The subsidy covers 12% of the first US$2,500 in wages. It will be given in four quarterly payments, with each payment based on the workers who are with the employer at the time. It is important to note that the scheme will help all companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises and companies that pay much lower income tax under the Singaporean tax schedule (Singapore government 2009). See: Singapore Government: Budget Speech 2009: Keeping Jobs, Building for the Future (January 2009).

²⁰In Indonesia, the stimulus package includes a measure to compensate for employees’ income taxes usually paid by businesses. Unlike in many other economies, most companies in Indonesia subsidize the income tax liabilities of their workers, thus taking on more tax burden (Suharmonko 2009). See: Aditya Suharmoko: “Government unveils final stimulus plan to boost economy”, Jakarta Post, 28 January 2009.

²¹This is aptly expressed by the Trade Unions’ Washington Declaration, stating that “this is the time to aid economic recovery through environmentally responsible investment designed to create jobs” (ITUC, TUAC, and Global Unions 2008). See, ITUC, TUAC and Global Unions: Trade Union Statement to the ‘G20 Crisis Summit’: The Global Unions ‘Washington Declaration’ (November 2008).

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