“Hey brother, can you spare a job?” That may very well be the phrase of choice as the United Nations warns of the potential risk of unemployment will displace nearly 11 million individuals in the first half of this decade thanks to slower growth and turbulence. Underscoring that number, the International Labour (ILO) says that in 2019, roughly 212 million individuals will be looking for work as compared to the current level of nearly 201 million.

Across the European theater, prices continue to drop which translates to individuals spending less. It is not so much the image of soup lines and handouts of bread scare economists but there are concerns that an exceptionally low increase in prices among euro-denomination countries could very well bolster a long period of slow growth resulting in a stagnant economy. The outcome, say ILO spokespersons is that if low wages continue to force individuals to consume less and if investments remain lower than expected, then obviously there is an overall outlook for negative growth in the European sector.

The solution that more jobs need to be created in order to close the pending unemployment gap looks dim. The 2015 forecast for overall employment and social trends recently published by the ILO pointed out that an extra 280 million jobs would have to be created by 2019 in order to narrow the job disparity currently created by Europe’s economic downturn.

And, comments the ILO, the quick-fix by euro zone members of cutting employee wages as a way to balance international bailouts of euro zone members cannot continue either.

Staunch Euro zone supporters Great Britain and the United States have experienced recent improvements in their overall jobless rates, but even a long-term positive outlook for those countries remains uncertain at best.

Unemployment is affecting even the most robust of European economies. According to a a news article in The Guardian, Germany, long supporting the European Union on its shoulders, could see its unemployment statistics rise to almost five percent within the next two years versus its current percentage rate of 4.7 percent.

That said however, economists say that the German labour market has shown a great ability to bounce back throughout 2014 and seems to be able to continue that course even in the current slowdown in economic growth.

True-to-to form, the global segment of unemployment affected most are youth, especially those between 15 and 24 years of age. In 2014, youth unemployment was almost three times as high as that of adults, hovering around 13 percent.

According to ta news article in the Economic Times, long-term unemployment trends have created a gap between affluence and poverty and the space will continue to increase as the richest segment of society will literally enjoy a money-grab of one-half of the global wealth within the next year. According to the ILO, the income gap is likely to widen, with 30 to 40 percent of total income coming from the earnings of the richest 10 percent, and the poorest 10 percent earning only 2 to 7 percent of total income.

If there is a glimmer of hope to the unemployment scenario, it is that currently the middle class in developing countries accounts for more than 30 percent of total employment. That is up from 20 percent since the last two decades.