United Nations Radio

More workers than ever were living in poverty last year.

That assessment comes in a new report by the International Labour Organization.  The World Employment Report calls for greater efforts to create more and better jobs if the world is going to achieve the target of halving poverty by 2015.  The report says nearly one and a half billion workers of the world's total work force were living under the US$2 a day poverty line in 2003, and some 550 million of those were existing on less than a dollar a day.  Jeff Johnson of the ILO says there's a need to create better jobs.

"We need to focus on access to decent and productive employment if we are targeting the alleviation of poverty."
 
The ILO also calls for strategies for increasing productivity and creating jobs.