DUSHANBE, January 25, 2014, Asia-Plus -- Worldwide working poverty dropped drastically over a decade but progress stalled in 2013, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said in its Global Employment Trends 2014 report.

Produced by the ILO’s Research Department, the report says that an estimated 375 million workers lived on less than US$1.25 a day in 2013, compared to 600 million in the early 2000s – a 12 per cent drop per year, on average.  But progress has stalled, and in 2013 the number of workers in extreme poverty declined by only 2.7 per cent globally.

This trend reportedly reflects a peak in vulnerable employment, which the ILO defines as the sum of own account workers and contributing family workers.  The number of people in vulnerable employment expanded by around 1 per cent in 2013, well above the 0.2 per cent growth rates during the years prior to the financial crisis.

The creation of decent jobs is the most pressing global development priority, the report notes.

There is also a significant gender wage gap in the region.   The report says that according to Sattar (2012), in Tajikistan male wages exceed female wages by 65 percent.

In 2012, unemployment rate in Tajikistan was reportedly 11 percent it is expected to fall to 10.4 percent in 2018.

Meanwhile, according to the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Employment of Tajikistan, more than 50,000 individuals in Tajikistan were registered as unemployed last year.

“In 2013, a total of 119,189 persons applied to the employment center for assistance with employment.  Of this total, 51,403 people were officially registered as unemployed,” Niyozbek Qurbonov, an official with the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Employment, told journalists in Dushanbe on January 24.

He said that current minimum unemployment benefit in Tajikistan amounted to 250.00 somoni.

According to the statistical date from the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Employment, 37,903 people were placed in jobs in Tajikistan last year.  Besides, 3,578 people were provided with soft loans to start business.

In all, 205,333 new jobs were created in Tajikistan last year.