ISLAMABAD, Jan 24: Global unemployment rose in 2003 to a record 185.9 million, but the worldwide economic recovery in the second half of the year may have helped to improve the situation, says the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The number of people, who were unemployed in 2003, reached 6.2 per cent of the total labour force, the highest unemployment figure recorded by the UN's labour agency.

This was, however, only a marginal increase over the 2002, when 185.4 million people were jobless.

It said the rate of growth in global unemployment slowed down sharply against the previous two years, adding that it was "too early to say that worst is over."

The report predicted that if current estimates of global growth and domestic demand held steady or improved over the coming year, the global employment picture may brighten somewhat in 2004.

However, despite an acceleration in economic growth after a two-year-long slump, the figures for 2003 remained at record levels for men and women and escalated more sharply among young people, aged between 15 and 24, the report said.

Of the total unemployed, 108.1 million were men, up 600,000 from 2002 but there was a slight decline among women as 77.8 million of them were jobless in 2003 down from 77.9 million in 2002. But the hardest hit were 88.2 million young people with a crushing unemployment rate of 14.4 per cent, the report said.

"Our greatest concern is that if the recovery falters and our hopes for more and better jobs are further delayed, many countries will fail to cut poverty by half as targeted by the millennium development goals for 2015," International Labour Organization Director-General Juan Somavia said.

"But we can reverse this trend and reduce poverty if policy-makers stop treating employment as an afterthought and place decent work at the heart of macroeconomic and social policies," he added.

The International Labour Organization report stated unemployment and under-employment during the first half of 2003 rose because of the slow pace of the economic upturn in the industrialized economies and the negative impact of the severe acute respiratory syndrome on employment in Asia.

A drop in tourism and travel employment also resulted from armed conflicts.

In the poorer countries, the "informal economy" of people without fixed jobs or steady self-employment has grown and the working poor," defined as those living on one dollar a day or less, has remained at an estimated 550 million, according to the report.-APP