Bangkok, Thailand – The U.N.’s labor agency said today that last December’s tsunami left more than a million people without jobs, as affected countries prepared to mark the six-month anniversary of the tragedy.
The International Labour Organization said its effort to help restore employment to people in the countries hardest hit by the Dec. 26 disaster – Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand – was “its largest ever” project to restore livelihoods.
Some workers in the four worst-hit countries have recovered some means of earning a living, the ILO said, citing the case of Sri Lanka, where 60 percent of the 400,000 who lost their livelihoods have recovered some form of employment.
However, “the vast majority of those affected in the four countries are still unable to earn a decent living,” said the ILO statement.
The tsunami, triggered by an underwater earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killed at least 179,000 people in 11 countries and left many more homeless.
Shinichi Hasegawa, ILO Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, was quoted as saying that “employment creation should be an explicit and central objective of the economic and social reconstruction effort.” He said the ILO activities included helping to rebuild infrastructure, re-establishing employment services and revitalizing local economic activities.
The ILO has received $11 million in contributions for the project from Australia, Belgium, Canada, the European Union, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States and the U.N. Development Program.
Hasegawa described reconstruction as a long-term process and added that “special efforts are required to protect the rights of vulnerable groups, particularly orphaned girls and boys, the bereaved and the disabled.”
