Bid To Solve Asia’s Manpower Problems

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31775, 4 September 1968, Page 15

Bid To Solve Asia’s Manpower Problems

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) TOKYO, September 3. Delegates from 26 nations gathered in Tokyo yesterday for the sixth Asian regional conference of the International Labour Organisation to seek a solution to Asia’s unemployment problems.

The scope of the task facing the conference was described in an opening address by Mr George Weaver, chairman of the 1.L.0.’s governing body and the United States’ Assistant Secretary of Labour for International Affairs.

“We must always remember,” Mr Weaver said, “that while we analyse our pro. blems and discuss approaches to their solution, millions of people will live out their lives shortened by hunger, deprivation, disease and despair," A report prepared for the conference indicates that Asia's unemployment problems, already a crushing burden for many countries in the regiou, will approach cataclysmic proportions unless drastic remedies are applied. According to 1.L.0. figures, the labour force of Arfa’s developing nations will increase from 663 million to 938 million by 1980. At the same time, the number of new jobs in the developing industry of these countries will rise by only 142 million.

This means that new jobs will absorb only a little more than half the increase in the labour force by 1980. The statistic implies a geometric increase in poverty, hunger and misery in this crowded part of the world. Most of the speakers at today’s first conference session insisted that Asia’s developing nations would not be able

to meet their unemployment problems alone. Solutions could only be reached through regional planning and co-operation, they declared. The conference has set itself the goal of working out a detailed “Asian manpower plan.”