MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Rousseff warns about global unemployment; calls for plans to generate jobs

“The crisis was the making of the rich countries”, said the Brazilian president

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff addressing the results of the G20 summit in Cannes, where Brazil was one of the countries represented said that job creation is a way to tackle economic crises.

In her weekly radio show, Rousseff said on Monday that the current crisis, which is affecting the United States and the European Union, cannot be tackled by reducing workers' rights.

“Our message at the summit was water clear: the unemployment matter is extremely worrying. It affects 200 million people in the world” she said, stressing that, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), most of the unemployed around the world are young people.

“Jobs must be created, domestic demand stimulated, that’s the only way out to the current crisis. Cutting spending and investments will only make the situation worse”, said President Rousseff.

She said that the situation in Brazil was “completely different” because when the crisis erupted in 2008, the country turned “to reinforce the domestic market.”

“We are close to full employment. From January to September 2011, over 2.079 million formal jobs were created” said the Brazilian president. She also stressed the importance of proper regulation of the financial sector.

”The difference between us and the rich countries which are undergoing a crisis is that we have a solid economy, with solid, regulated and controlled banks. Brazil does not have a high debt, on the contrary, it has reserves of 350 billion U.S. dollars,” she said.

“The crisis was the making of the rich countries; it was born in the lack of controls in the financial systems of those countries and with a globalized economy had an immediate impact and influence on the world scenario” even when the emerging economies have “their houses in order”.

President Rousseff said that the emerging countries have been the locomotive of the world economy growth even when they have also suffered some of the slowdown, “but we are still upholding global economic expansion”.

Finally Ms Rousseff said she was extremely proud of the ILO initiative to create a ‘World Floor for Social Protection’ which has been basically copied from the social policies that have been implemented in Brazil for the last nine years.

“It is very similar to our Family Bourse program and the ILO is taking it as a reference, this should make us all Brazilians very proud”.