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Poor states unable to plug West's labour gap-report
16 Mar 2009 18:40:25 GMT
 Source: Reuters
BRUSSELS, March 16 (Reuters) - Workers in poor nations lack the skills to help plug growing shortages in the rich world in jobs ranging from plumbing to medicine, the World Bank said in a report released on Monday.

The global lender urged governments to look beyond the current economic and financial crisis and start now to coordinate international training programmes to pre-empt a labour shortage "crisis" in decades to come.

"Training for the global labour market of 2030 and beyond must start now," said Leila Zlaoui, the report's main author, urging cooperation between labour-surplus and labour-deficit areas to better educate future workers and facilitate migration.

The labour force of regions such as Europe, North America and China could decline by 215 million workers between now and 2050 because of ageing populations, declining fertility rates and increased longevity, the report said.

It projected growth of more than 500 million workers in some regions, including the Middle East and North Africa.

Training professionals, from plumbers to doctors, takes roughly 15 to 20 years, but regions with a future labour surplus, such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), lack the ability to train such workers, she said.

"What is clear is that MENA is still lagging unfortunately in terms of education attainment," Zlaoui told a news conference in Brussels to present the report.

It proposed international cooperation to smooth the integration of foreign labour forces into host countries, better use of established diaspora networks to help migration and providing language training. (Reporting by Sarah Luehrs and Bate Felix; editing by Mark John ands Tim Pearce)


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Last updated:Mon Mar 16 18:41:55 2009