Deepening recession is expected to increase the number of unemployed women by up to 22 million as global job crisis could "worsen sharply" this year, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has warned.

Ahead of the International Women's Day on March 8, the ILO said the labour market projections for 2009 showed deterioration in global labour markets for both women and men.

The UN labour body projected that global unemployment rate could reach between 6.3 per cent and 7.1 per cent, with a corresponding female unemployment rate ranging from 6.5 to 7.4 per cent compared to 6.1 per cent to 7.0 per cent for men.

"This would result in an increase of between 24 million and 52 million people unemployed worldwide, of which from 10 million to 22 million would be women," the ILO said in its annual Global Employment Trends for Women report.

The report said the gender impact of economic crisis in terms of unemployment rates is expected to be more detrimental for females than males in most parts of the world.

Noting that the economic downturn has hit women harder as they were "more vulnerable" than men, the report said the trend can be arrested through gender equality policies.

The ILO said the global economic crisis would place new hurdles in the way to sustainable and socially equitable growth making decent work for women more difficult and advocated "creative solutions" to address the gender gap.