"A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats"

From the AP:

The number of jobless worldwide has risen by 20 million people over the past two years and hundreds of millions more are employed but make so little money they can barely survive, the United Nations labor agency said Friday.

"The world employment situation is alarming," said Claire Harasty, senior economist at the International Labor Organization, launching the 108-page Global Employment Trends report. "After two years of economic slowdown and delayed recovery we estimate that 180 million people are now unemployed worldwide."

The figure represents 6.5 percent of a total global labor force of 2.8 billion people, the ILO said.

The last report, in 2001, said the number out of work was 160 million - or 5.9 percent of a then 2.7-billion labor force.