Pope Francis said in a video message to the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) for Catholic Social Week Thursday that "black labour and precarious employment kill". He said "precarious work is an open wound for many workers, who live in fear of losing their jobs. I have felt this anguish many times". Francis said that a worker cannot be "a line of cost in the balance sheet". He said the economic system "aims at consumption, without worrying about the dignity of work or safeguarding the environment" but it is "a bit like cycling with a flat tyre: it is dangerous!" He said "dignity and safeguards are mortified when the worker is considered a line of cost in the balance sheet, when the cries of the cast-off remain ignored". Francis told the jobless "don't lose faith". He said "my thoughts go to the unemployed who are seeking work they cannot find, to the discouraged who no longer have the strength to search, and to the under-employed, who just work a few hours a month without managing to get over the poverty line. To them I say: don't lose faith. I also say it to those living in the areas of the south of Italy which are most in difficulty".
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