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According to the latest edition of JobTrends—a quarterly series monitoring labor markets in a sample of emerging economies—employment growth maintained its gradual ascent in the first quarter of 2012. In the countries surveyed, continued economic growth helped employment reach a growth rate of 2.9 percent in that period.

Keeping with the overall trend, labor markets in Europe and Central Asia continued then their steady recovery, with striking declines in unemployment in Lithuania, Moldova, Romania, and the Russian Federation. Similarly, selected labor markets in Latin America also improved, amid a slowdown in economic growth. In the four East Asian countries included in the report, employment and wage growth improved, with China’s employment growth jumping to 9.9 percent.

At the same time, however, the median unemployment rate increased slightly in the sample from 5.8 to 6.2 percent, signaling that some economies may have then started to have difficulties maintaining a high pace of job creation, as they were continuing to feel the effects of the financial crisis in advanced economies.

In this contribution to the on-going debate about the relationship between income inequality and growth, UNCTAD argues that rising inequality is neither a necessary condition for sound economic growth, nor its natural result. By contrast, full participation of all citizens in the proceeds of the economy as a whole in indispensable for successful and sustained development.

The Report further discusses what are widely perceived to be the main structural causes of recent changes in income distribution, including trade, technological change, and finance-led globalization. It argues that the impacts of globalization and technological change on domestic income distribution are not uniform. Rather, they depend on initial conditions and on how macroeconomic, financial and labour market policies interact with the forces of globalization and technological development. Structural changes do not necessarily lead to greater inequality if appropriate employment, wage, and income distribution policies are in place

Finally, the Report examines how labour-market institutions and policies, together with an appropriate macroeconomic framework, can respond to current challenges and lead to sustained growth and more inclusive development. It starts with the proposition that slow growth has a strong impact on inequality, due to high unemployment, which weakens the bargaining power of labour.