The International Labor Organization’s Global Employment Trends report said that despite economic growth of 8.0 percent in East Asia last year, the highest in the world, unemployment rose 0.1 percent to 3.6 percent.

However, the ILO also found that poverty in East Asia had decreased, while the number of unemployed people in Southeast Asia was steadying after a gradual decline since the 1997-1998 financial crisis.

"Low and stable unemployment rates, moderate population growth and positive growth prospects in the near-term make it likely that labor markets (in East Asia) will remain stable in 2007," the ILO report said.

The number of East Asian workers whose families were living on less than two dollars a day fell from 61.9 percent in 1996 to 44.2 percent last year, below the global average of 47.4 percent.

But the report warned that as East Asia — which includes China, Japan, the two Koreas and Mongolia — ploughed toward its goal of becoming a middle-income region, it had to be aware of a growing gap between the rich and poor.