THE United Nations’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) today denounced “premature” austerity measures brought in by governments around the world.

It said that policies introduced during the financial crisis had hurt the world’s most vulnerable people.

ILO director of social welfare Isabel Ortiz said that in 2014 alone at least 122 governments had cut public spending, including in 82 developing countries.

In the European Union, where many states brought in swingeing budget cuts in response to the debt crisis, she estimated that as many as 123 million people — a quarter of the bloc’s population — were now classified as poor because of cuts in social protection.

Now, she said, more than 70 per cent of the world’s population was inadequately covered.

Cuts to “pensions, health systems and social security… the removal of subsidies, downsizing among social workers and health personnel” had hit poor people at a time when they were most in need of support, said Ms Ortiz.

People had been forced to pay the cost “at a time when jobs are scarce and support more necessary than ever.”

Between 2008 and 2009, 48 developed countries implemented stimulus packages worth £1.4 trillion, of which about a quarter was on social protection.

But, from 2010, many governments changed tack and took “premature fiscal consolidation measures” despite the need to support the poor.

“Most people do not now have adequate social protection when it is most needed,” said deputy director-general Sandra Polaski.

Almost four out of 10 people worldwide do not have access to a healthcare system, while in poor countries that rises to nine out of 10.

Globally, only 12 per cent of the unemployed receive benefits, ranging from almost two-thirds in Western Europe to less than 3 per cent in the Middle East and Africa.

Meanwhile, the ageing population in developed countries means many pensioners live below the poverty line.

In at least 14 European countries, pensions are expected to fall.

The ILO called for social spending to be “high on the post-2015 agenda.”

“The rationale for social protection is even more undeniable in this period of economic uncertainty, low growth and growing inequality,” concluded Ms Polaski.