Artificial intelligence is hitting the global labour market “like a tsunami” International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Monday. Artificial intelligence is likely to impact 60% of jobs in advanced economies and 40% of jobs around the world in the next two years, Georgieva told an event in Zurich. “We have very little time to get people ready for it, businesses ready for it,” she told the event organised by the Swiss Institute of International Studies, associated to the University of Zurich. “It could bring tremendous increase in ...

Staff of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Argentine authorities have reached an agreement on the eighth review of the country’s $44 billion extended fund facility arrangement, the Washington-based lender said on Monday. The IMF said the decision followed better-than-expected first-quarter performance in Argentina. Argentine President Javier Milei took office in December vowing to tackle triple-digit inflation, contracting economic activity and reserves in the red. He rolled out a sweeping fiscal reform, tightening the federal government’s belt. Milei’s plan “has resulted in faster-than-anticipated progress in restoring macroeconomic stability and bringing ...

Differences between U.S.-led Western and China-aligned economic blocs threaten global trade cooperation and economic growth, a top official with the International Monetary Fund warned. IMF Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath said in a speech at Stanford University that events such as the global pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have disrupted global trade relations in ways not seen since the Cold War. “Increasingly, countries around the world are guided by economic security and national security concerns in determining who they trade with and invest in,” she said, adding that this ...

Real household income per capita in the OECD rose by 0.5% in the fourth quarter of 2023, following a 0.2% fall in the third quarter. Growth in real income per capita exceeded growth in real GDP per capita of 0.2% (Figure 1). Real household income per capita increased in most OECD countries in Q4 2023. Of the 19 countries for which data is available, 11 registered an increase, 6 saw a decrease, and 2 were flat. Among G7 economies, real household income per capita rose in the United Kingdom, France, ...

Year-on-year inflation in the OECD as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) remained broadly stable at 5.8% in March 2024, after 5.7% in February (Figures 1 and 2). Headline inflation fell in 19 OECD countries with the largest monthly decline recorded in the Slovak Republic. It was the highest in Türkiye (still above 60%) while it was below 2.0% in seven OECD countries. In March 2024, OECD energy inflation was positive for the first time since April 2023, at 0.6%. Energy inflation increased in 28 OECD countries, 12 of ...

The global economy is continuing growing at a modest pace, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Outlook. The Economic Outlook projects steady global GDP growth of 3.1% in 2024, the same as the 3.1% in 2023, followed by a slight pick-up to 3.2% in 2025. The impact of tight monetary conditions continues being felt, particularly in housing and credit markets, but global activity is proving relatively resilient, the decline in inflation continues, and private sector confidence is improving. The OECD unemployment rate stood at 4.9% in February, close to its ...

Britain’s economy will grow slower this year and next than thought only a few months ago and it will suffer higher inflation than its peers, forecasts from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed on Thursday. The OECD cuts its British economic growth forecast to 0.4% for 2024 from 0.7% in February, and growth next year is expected to stand at just 1.0%, compared with a previous forecast of 1.2%. It means the OECD expects Britain’s economy will grow more slowly next year than France or Germany. Consumer prices ...

Relatively lower inflation in Asia means the region’s central banks can focus more on domestic conditions and less on what the U.S. Federal Reserve might do when setting monetary policy, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday. The region is heading for a “soft landing” thanks to rapid disinflation creating room for easing monetary policies, the lender said in a report, although the pace of economic expansion is expected to slow over the next two years. “Don’t tie yourself too tight to what the Fed does, look at what’s happening ...

A groundbreaking international tax initiative managed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) continues making strong progress assisting developing countries boost tax revenues and better mobilise domestic resources, according to a report released today. Effective taxation and fiscal policies are vital for development financing as they not only generate revenue but also foster accountable and inclusive governance. In this context, the Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) Annual Report 2024 shows the impact of the initiative’s work over the past nine years, ...

A second consecutive year of high inflation pushed up labour taxes across OECD countries in 2023, according to a new OECD report. Taxing Wages 2024 reveals that effective tax rates on labour incomes rose in a majority of OECD countries with the post-tax income of single workers earning the average wage declining in 21 out of 38 OECD countries. In a majority of countries, the increase in labour taxation was primarily driven by increases in personal income tax. While real wages declined in 18 OECD countries, nominal wages increased in ...

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva bemoaned the slow pace of global growth, saying that Europe needed to do more to boost productivity and China should work to unleash greater consumer spending. Georgieva told a news conference during the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington that a number of factors are converging to hold back growth in Europe and China, from aging populations to sub-optimal allocations of capital, while the U.S. has far outperformed expectations. “This is what preoccupies us these days. How can we better stem ...

The United States needs to raise revenues to bring down high budget deficits even though they are helping to fuel global growth by stoking domestic U.S. demand, International Monetary Fund First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath said on Saturday. Gopinath told a fiscal forum at the IMF and World Bank spring meetings that U.S. deficits are projected to rise for years with one of the world’s steepest curves for debt. “The high levels of deficits are also supporting growth and demand in the U.S. that have positive spillover to the ...

Italy and France should cut spending faster than they currently plan to keep debt under control while Germany should loosen its own purse strings to revive growth, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday. Finance ministers from all over the world have descended on Washington this week to compare notes and hear from IMF and World Bank experts on topics ranging from fiscal policy to global growth and helping poorer countries. While the IMF’s advice is not binding for countries that do not receive its help, its latest musings on ...

Shareholders of the International Monetary Fund agreed this week on the importance of addressing challenges faced by low-income countries, many of which are facing unsustainable debt burdens, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Friday. Multiple reports from the IMF and the World Bank this week sounded the alarm about economic developments and prospects in low-income developing countries, which are still grappling with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and other shocks. The IMF lowered its 2024 growth forecast for low-income countries as a group to 4.7% from an estimate ...

A soft landing of easing inflation with “moderate economic cost” is within reach for European economies but is far from assured, with the recovery so far showing itself to be tentative in most economies across the region, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday in a report detailing Europe’s outlook. On the heels of another downgrade to the near-term growth outlook for the continent’s core euro area economies, the IMF said the feeble recovery reflects weaker consumer sentiment, the lagged effect of higher energy prices and softness in interest-rate sensitive ...