Cambodia’s Low Jobless Rate Hides Harsh Reality

When the International Labor Organization (ILO) released its annual world employment outlook last week, the data showed something remarkable—almost no one was jobless in Cambodia last year.

With unemployment at only 0.5 percent of the workforce in 2015, Cambodia had fared better than France (at 10.6 percent), the U.S. (5.3 percent), China (4.6 percent) and far better than the global average (5.8 percent).



In fact, of the 189 countries ranked by the ILO in 2015, Cambodia came in second only to Qatar (at 0.2 percent) in the race for the world’s lowest unemployment rate. Neighboring Thailand came third at 1.1 percent.

Not one to waste an opportunity to promote good news, Labor Minister Ith Samheng described the astonishingly low unemployment as “Cambodia’s pride,” according to state news outlet Agence Kampuchea Presse.

“Ith Samheng attributed this achievement to the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC)’s efforts in improving work conditions and bettering people’s living standard,” read a report published on Wednesday.

https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/camb ... ty-106803/

Jerry Atrick wrote:Horseshit.

Yup. But to be fair, the CD article does raise the question about the ILO criteria for measuring "employment": They use the same standards for developed and undeveloped countries. And yeah, that is horseshit. People who are working 1 hour a week or more WITHOUT PAY are counted as employed ??? The ILO need a reality check.

Yet beneath the impressive statistic lies a harsher reality of widespread near-unemployment, masked by the ILO’s methodology: Anyone who works just one hour a week is considered employed.
“The employed include people aged 15 and over who, during the reference week worked for one hour or more for pay, profit, commission or payment in kind, in a job or business or on a farm,” notes a 2013 ILO working paper on its methodology.

If such criteria was not inclusive enough, the paper added that those “who worked for one hour or more without pay in a family business or on a family farm” are also considered “employed” for statistical purposes...

https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/camb ... ty-106803/

Same in Vietnam. Incredibly low unemployment rate. F'in lol. They use criteria derived from the west in 1950's iirc. Bless them.

good and bad.

Wonder why people are happier here.

That's a funny statistic. I wonder how they measured it? Has anyone seen men in white coats with clipboards hanging around street corners polling people?
Or maybe they used Cambodian Centrelink data.

Username Taken wrote:Take away Social Security / Unemployment Benefits in the western world and they too will reduce unemployment.

These SEA countries have low (or 'No") unemployment because there is no alternative.

Sink or swim.

spot on UT...

every time i go past all them factories on the outskirts of PP im not surprised at the low unemployment,
it completely warps my mind at the sheer scale of number of girls working in them factories, and most are working for peanuts
seriously when my brain tries to take in the amount of stars in the universe it has a similar melt down