Jobless Growth- An Empirical Analysis of Economies with High Unemployment Rate

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the world economies witnessed jobless growth in the recent years and if so, then in what ways it has affected different sectors within these economies. The existence of this phenomenon has been claimed by many authorities, including United Nations Development Program and World Economic Forum. Jobless growth is considered to be an increase in real GDP, with a simultaneous rise in unemployment rate. The significance behind investigating this problem is why it occurred in recent years across the world and what made it emerge as one of the top global economic trends of world economic forum in 2015. Moreover, whether this problem could last in future or is it a short term phenomenon which could be overcome by effective government policies. To approach this issue, appropriate theory, historical background and secondary data have been used in order to examine the reasons behind emergence of this problem in recent years and its scope in the future. This study concludes that many of those world economies which have faced this problem over the last decade might have faced it mostly in the first five years than the latter. However, in some of the countries the problem was dominant in the later five years, while in others it persisted throughout the ten years.