Europe in recession: Employment initiatives at company and Member State level - Background paper

There are increasingly alarming predictions about the employment impact of the most severe crisis in the developed world economies since the great depression of the 1930s. The ILO predicted in January 2009 that global unemployment could increase by up to 50 million in a worst case scenario. Already, most of the developed world has succumbed to recession. Forecasts for future growth have been repeatedly revised downwards and it is unlikely that the EU economy will begin to recover before late 2009 at the earliest.