Unemployment across emerging markets has risen sharply this year, reversing a six-year slide, even as it has continued to fall in developed countries.
The figures compound a worsening slowdown in emerging markets, driven by a fall in commodity prices and a pullback in global trade, which threatens to drag consumer spending down.
“Unemployment is rising rapidly,” said Bruce Kasman, chief economist at JPMorgan, who described the trend as”broad-based”.
“Recessions in Russia and Brazil have been a major driver of the slump in job growth in recent months.
However, the deceleration also includes such countries as Korea, Mexico, Chile and Hungary,” he added.
Across emerging markets, unemployment has risen to 5.7 per cent, from a cyclical low of 5.2 per cent in January, the sharpest rise since the global financial crisis, according to figures compiled by JPMorgan.
The rise in joblessness comes as EM economic growth has slipped to its slowest pace since the 2009 slump as developing nations struggle with the impact of a stronger US dollar and weaker commodity prices.
“The story of the past few years has been that emerging markets have been slowing but until recently that wasn’t reflected in a pickup in unemployment in most places,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia Economist at consultants Capital Markets.
Recession-plagued Brazil has seen unemployment jump from 5 per cent to 6.3 per cent since the turn of the year, while over the same period it has risen 0.7 per cent in Russia to 5.9 per cent.
Chile and South Korea have both seen 0.4 per cent rises, to 6.6 per cent and 3.9 per cent respectively.
The analysis excludes India, which does not release labour market data, and China, whose official data are not considered reliable by many commentators.
