Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed the worst economic crisis in decades, with a severely damaging impact on working time and income. Although the global economy started to rebound in 2021, waves of spreading COVID-19 infections together with rising inflation, major supply chain disruptions, policy uncertainties and unsustainable debt of developing countries caused the global economy to slow down at the end of 2021. The conflict in Ukraine is expected to seriously set back global economic growth in 2022.

Following an increase of about 1.4 per cent in 2019, global real GDP per capita decreased sharply by 4.4 per cent in 2020. Global real GDP per capita is estimated to have rebounded at a growth rate of 4.4 per cent in 2021 and is projected to increase again by 3.0 per cent in 2022 and 2.5 per cent in 2023 based on pre-war estimations. The war in Ukraine is likely to downgrade global growth. The real GDP of least developed countries had increased by 5.0 per cent in 2019 but showed no growth in 2020 because of the disruption caused by the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in unprecedented, volatile developments in labour productivity levels. Globally, output per worker grew at an average annual rate of 1.6 per cent between 2015 and 2019. In 2020, the output per worker dropped by 0.6 per cent, the first such decline since 2009. Global labour productivity rebounded sharply in 2021, rising by 3.2 per cent. 86. Prior to the onset of the pandemic, informal employment represented 60.2 per cent of global employment in 2019. COVID-19 pandemic containment measures and mobility restrictions prevented labour reallocation to informal employment. Rather than become unemployed or shift to informal jobs, as in previous crises, laid -off employees and self-employed workers alike left the labour force. A disproportionate impact on informal workers was reflected in a decline in the informal employment rate in some countries at the height of the crisis, which has left informal workers and their families in a highly precarious position, exposed to sudden income losses and heightened risks of falling into poverty.

Equal treatment in employment is part and parcel of decent work. Globally women continue to be paid 19 per cent less than men according to an International Labour Organization (ILO) 2018/2019 study. In 87 per cent of countries with recent data, professionals earn per hour on average more than double what workers in elementary occupations earn.

Source: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal8