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The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said that global unemployment has risen to 202 million people in 2012, up by six million from last year's figures. The ILO has warned that austerity measures were hurting job markets worldwide. The ILO's World of Work Report 2012 has warned of 'devastating consequences' for employment and added that governments risked fuelling unrest unless they combined tighter spending with job creation. "The austerity and regulation strategy was expected to lead to more growth, which is not happening," Raymond Torres, director of the ILO's Institute for International Labour Studies, said. According to news.com.au, the report said some 50 million jobs had disappeared since 2008 financial crisis. The report predicted a global unemployment rate of 6.1 percent in 2012, up three percent from the provisional estimate of 196 million in 2011. It also predicted that unemployment would rise to 6.2 percent in 2013 as another five million people could lose their jobs. The report warned that trends were especially worrying in Europe , where nearly two-thirds of countries had seen unemployment rise since 2010. "The narrow focus of many eurozone countries on fiscal austerity is deepening the jobs crisis and could even lead to another recession in Europe ," Torres, the lead author of the report, said. "This is not surprising given that good jobs remain scarce and income inequality is rising," Torres said. The ILO blamed austerity policies for reducing small business' access to loans, and urged governments to restore credit to small firms, strengthen labour market safety nets and adopt measures to help young workers and other vulnerable groups.

ILO reveals 202 million globally to be unemployed in 2012