Ahead of the International Women's Day on March 8, the ILO said the labour market projections for 2009 showed deterioration in global labour markets for both women and men.
The UN labour body projected that global unemployment rate could reach between 6.3 per cent and 7.1 per cent, with a corresponding female unemployment rate ranging from 6.5 to 7.4 per cent compared to 6.1 per cent to 7.0 per cent for men.
"This would result in an increase of between 24 million and 52 million people unemployed worldwide, of which from 10 million to 22 million would be women," the ILO said in its annual Global Employment Trends for Women report.
The report said the gender impact of economic crisis in terms of unemployment rates is expected to be more detrimental for females than males in most parts of the world.
Noting that the economic downturn has hit women harder as they were "more vulnerable" than men, the report said the trend can be arrested through gender equality policies.
The ILO said the global economic crisis would place new hurdles in the way to sustainable and socially equitable growth making decent work for women more difficult and advocated "creative solutions" to address the gender gap.
The pattern of investment by Indians in foreign countries — after the limit was increased to $200,000 in September 2007 — is evident in the figures released recently by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). And the surprise is: contrary to expectations that most Indians were investing in real estate abroad, it is equity and debt that garnered the lion’s share. At $144.7 million, equity and debt comprised a third of the total investments of $440 million in 2007-08. Realty was a distant third at $39.5 million, behind gifts at $70.3 million.
But given that markets abroad began sliding in 2007-08 itself, there is no discounting the possibility that several investors would have lost money. Om Ahuja, executive vice-president and country head for investment management at Yes Bank, agrees, but adds: “They would also gain on account of the fact that they can sell their investments and bring the proceeds in. The loss would be reduced to an extent as the rupee has lost ground since.”
The rupee opportunity, it appears, was also used deliberately, explains Nipun Mehta, executive director and head of Societe Generale’s private banking in India. “As the rupee started progressively weakening against the dollar from 42 levels, the well-heeled saw sense in investing abroad,” he says. “If they were to sell their investments and remit inwards, they (would) also get more rupees as the local currency has gone down sharply.” The rupee currently quotes at 49.89 to the greenback.
What is perhaps surprising is that in the first nine months of the current fiscal, investors are still investing heavily in equity and debt. Out of the $528.5 million invested till November, equity and debt ($98 million), and gifts (98.3 million) run neck-and-neck for the top slot. But investment in real estate has been steadily going down, from $7.7 million in April to $2.6 million in November.
The Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS), introduced in February 2004, permitted Indian residents to remit up to $25,000 per year for current or capital account transactions, or a combination of both. The limit was enhanced to $50,000 in December 2006, then to $100,000 in May 2007 and, finally, to $200,000 with effect from 26 September 2007. These have been made in line with the S.S. Tarapore Committee’s recommendations on fuller convertibility.
And Indians seem to have utilised the opportunity to the hilt. The reason, explains Mehta, is that the sharp increase in the ceiling for such remittances within a year to $200,000 as on date meant that larger amounts could be used to invest. Agrees Sandeep Das, general manager for wealth management at Standard Chartered Bank (India), “RBI’s decision to allow residents to invest abroad has given them a great opportunity to diversify their assets across countries, and they are making good use of this window.”
The LRS has been a source of great business for banks that are into wealth management, especially foreign banks that are able to put their global platforms on offer for residents. Bankers say that going ahead, the pace of such remittances might slow a bit on account of the global downturn, and the consequent flight to safety.
And this, despite the fact the latest Merrill Lynch-Capgemini’s Asia Pacific Wealth Report 2008 says that the number of high-networth individuals (HNIs) in the region grew by 8.7 per cent to 2.8 million and that of ultra-HNI jumped 16.4 per cent to 20,400; that the region accounted for 27.8 per cent of the world’s HNI population in 2007 and ultra-HNIs accounted for 26.3 per cent of the region’s HNI wealth. “While global economic conditions in the first part of 2008 had an impact on the Asia-Pacific region, HNIs are still optimistic about growth throughout the region, and are continually looking for new opportunities,” the report observed.
The RBI remittance numbers read along with the Merrill Lynch-Capgemini report seems to suggest that some folks are recession proof.
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