The head of the IMF questioned on Monday any debate about when to roll back stimulus spending, saying the world economy had yet to weather the worst of a recession that claimed a record number of European jobs.
The 16-country euro zone lost a record 1.22 million jobs in the first quarter, official data showed. Employment during the first quarter fell 1.2 percent year-on-year, the deepest annual drop since measurements started in 1995.
Even if some form of economic recovery is not far off, analysts say unemployment will climb for many months to come.
Underlining the fragile state of the global economy, an influential economist said China would not see a rapid rebound and South Korea's finance minister said its economy was still sliding, although the pace had slowed.
But in southern Italy, Group of Eight finance ministers meeting at the weekend described their economies in the most positive terms since the collapse of U.S. bank Lehman Brothers nine months ago heightened the world's worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.