PRESS CONFERENCE ON PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYMENT REPORT TO BE CONSIDERED BY SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION
Press Briefing
PRESS CONFERENCE ON PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYMENT REPORT TO BE CONSIDERED BY SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION
19970219
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
At a Headquarters press briefing this morning, the Director of the Division for Social Policy and Development of the Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, John Langmore, described full employment as one of the core economic and social problems worldwide.
Mr. Langmore was introduced by the Under-Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development Nitin Desai, who said that the Commission for Social Development was trying to see how some of the creativity in the major United Nations conferences of the recent past could be captured in the standing political processes of the Organization. The Commission was the body empowered to follow-up what had been a fast-breaking event in Copenhagen in 1995, the World Summit for Social Development, when issues of poverty, employment and social integration were brought together.
Mr. Desai explained that the Commission, which would convene at Headquarters next week, was following a thematic approach in its deliberations and the its priority theme for consideration in 1997 was that of employment. The secretariat of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) had produced the current report which would guide the discussions on the subject. He expressed the hope that the meeting of the Commission would be used as a forum for really creative thinking on the issue, and also for identifying what needed to be done at the national and international levels to meet the basic goal of full employment as endorsed in Copenhagen.
Launching the report, which focused on productive employment and sustainable livelihoods, Mr. Langmore said that unemployment was averaging 11.3 per cent in Europe, with even higher figures than that in the transition and developing economies. The ILO had estimated that the workforce looking for employment was growing by 47 million people per year. Unemployment was also a central cause of poverty and of growing inequity, so the desirability of achieving full employment was quite clear.
Mr. Langmore said that the report had suggested that the goal of full employment was attainable -- "a rather daring suggestion", he noted, adding that the situation in a globalizing world had changed. One of the benefits of globalization was that even as most of the world was growing stronger economically, inflation had not picked up. Countries had neglected the goal of full employment in the last couple of decades because they had been preoccupied with keeping inflation down. Now that that had been generally achieved, there was greater scope for a more balanced approach to the goals of employment growth and low inflation.
On the question of whether governments still had the capacity to influence employment, Mr. Langmore said: "The argument of our report is that they do. Even though national autonomy is reduced by globalization, there is still a high level of scope for independent action by governments." He added that if governments acted in cooperation, the scope of that action would increase, noting that it was easier to make that point in 1997 than at any time in the last 20 years because virtually every country in the world was now experiencing positive economic growth. "Positive economic growth will lead to positive employment growth", he stressed.
Mr. Langmore pointed out that there were six main policies outlined in the report, as follows: benefits of free trade and increased financial flows; the central importance of a stable economic and social environment; the scope for action by governments; labour market policies; protection of vulnerable workers; and the value of social dialogue on policy-making.
Answering a question on employment growth in the business sector, he said that one of the problems that had led to the growth of unemployment in the last few years had been corporate downsizing, mainly in large companies. There had, however, also been a fashion for downsizing which had led to more retrenchment than might have been judged to be desirable. The experts now argued that increasing the turnover and profits required not downsizing, but strengthening the innovative capacity and dynamism of enterprises.
Regarding the growth of small business, he said that two of the very important issues emphasized in the report were increasing credit availability and keeping interest rates low.
A correspondent asked whether he accepted that most new investment in the world economy would be done in Europe and some parts of Asia, as stated in a recently published report on the matter. Mr. Langmore described the interviewer's interpretation as "simplistic". There had been a very rapid investment growth in about a dozen developing countries in the last few years, and that growth was continuing. Among current trends in the world economy was that investors of industrialized countries perceived greater opportunities for investments in developing countries. In the 1990s there had been a rapid growth in the level of financial flow towards some of the emerging markets, which was continuing because that was where the most profitable investment opportunities were occurring.
Asked if he disagreed with a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report which stated that the developing countries were better off 10 years ago than they were today, he said that the question could not be broadly answered as developing countries were a diverse group. Some were growing extremely strong and doing very well, as in south-east Asia, while in sub-Saharan Africa some were doing badly, and others in Latin America had a variety of experiences.
Social Development Briefing - 3 - 19 February 1007
A correspondent, pointing out that a lot of governments paid lip-service to the idea of full employment, asked how would he challenge the orthodoxy of acceptable levels of unemployment at the national level? Mr. Langmore said that that was a clear opportunity to give a more balanced approach to economic objectives because inflation was now generally lower in the industrialized countries. In addition, competitive pressure, "which would keep a dampener on inflation", was much stronger. There was also growth within electorates in those countries concerned about unemployment, leading to more discussion in the past few years about giving employment increased attention. Governments were being asked to find additional means of achieving a better balance between employment and inflation.
On wage disputes and their effect on employment, he underlined the need for "consensual" approaches to the determination of wages, pointing out that there was quite a track record now in some countries, such as Japan and Germany, with successful approaches that others could emulate. If employers and employees were willing to look at such examples, the emphasis on bargaining within the context of the enterprise would be helpful, as long as both parties recognized that they had a shared interest both in the growth of the enterprise as well as in employment in it. He stressed that there was always a basis for attempting to negotiate fair wage agreements if such negotiations were sufficiently open.
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