overall, the un's international labour organization, the ilo, is expecting that at least 3 million morearound the world will be unemployed this year, and also that the quality ofjobs out there will suffer. amongst other things that means pay that doesn't keep up with the cost of living and less job security. i had been speaking to the director—general. gilbert houngbo, a pleasure having you on the show, and let's start with this. your forecasts for this year don't paint a pretty picture, what are you expecting? the covid effects, where a lot of countries, particularly from the north, have started recovering while emerging or low—income economies are struggling with the impact of covid on one hand. on the other hand, we have tension starting with the war in ukraine, and its consequences. third is the inflation situation. when we put all of that together, it gives a picture that is not rosy. gilbert, in recent weeks we have heard of a growing number of big—name companies making big job cuts, like amazon, facebook parent meta, goldman sachs. i wonder, does it make you fear that more are to

on that note, gilbert huungbo, director—general of the international labour organization, thank you,k you for having me on your show today. so what does all this mean when it comes to companies actually hiring staff? are they still expanding their headcount? robert walters, a recruitment agency, globally, operates in 30 countries. i've been catching up with its chief executive. pleasure having you on, thank you. let's start with your company, you're talking about a softening of recruitment activity levels, so i want you to paint me a picture, toby, what is that, what does i've done this nearly 25 years, we came out of 2020 with a depressed market, globally, i have never seen the catapult effect that came out of 2020. the rate at which companies were hiring was dramatic, we went through a market 2021 which i certainly haven't experience. that continued with even more speed in 2022. this is all hiring? yes, on the backdrop of increasing candidate shortages, globally. more prevalent sectors like technology, legal, and we got to the ukraine crisis that had an impact, some of the challeng