ILO sees 1 million jobs lost

The International Labour Organisation has said job creation strategies should be integrated into the reconstruction and relief measures in the Tsunami affected areas.

Estimating that 1 million people lost their livelihood in Indonesia and Sri Lanka alone, ILO said the response to the tragedy required employment intensive recovery.

In a strategy paper to be presented by the ILO's Bangkok office at a 5-day United Nations conference on disaster reduction in Kobe, Japan, it has said around 600,000 people in worst-affected areas of Indonesia and over 400,000 workers in such areas of Sri Lanka have lost their sole source of livelihood.

The ILO said while its team was working in India and Thailand to assess the employment protection needs, Sri Lanka and Indonesia saw the most jobs of the countries in the region affected by the disaster.

Majority of job losses in Indonesia are in fishing, small-scale and plantation agriculture and unregistered small business. Besides these sectors, job losses in Sri Lanka are also in sectors like hotel and tourism.

The unemployment rate in the affected Indonesian provinces could be 30 per cent or even higher from just 6.8 per cent prior to the disaster. The unemployment rate in the affected provinces of Sri Lanka rose to 20 per cent from 9.2 per cent.

ILO has suggested taking up of employment-intensive infrastructure reconstruction to quickly generate jobs and income.