PRESS BRIEFING BY INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION

 

Despite robust economic growth, the global job market improved only slightly in 2004 -- with employment increasing and unemployment down marginally -- and with a “challenging” year ahead, a new report launched today by the International Labour Organization (ILO) urges policymakers to focus on promoting employment along with productivity growth, particularly in the sectors where most people worked, such as agriculture, small-scale enterprises and urban informal economies.

The focus of the Global Employment Trends Brief was not only on increasing employment, but also on poverty alleviation and improving the conditions of work, said Lawrence Jeff Johnson, Chief of the ILO’s Employment Trends Unit, as he introduced the study to the press today at United Nations Headquarters in New York.  He stressed that the twin issues of creating employment opportunities and improving worker productivity -- the engine that drove wage increase and led to improvements in worker’s lives -- be balanced by investing in growing sectors, while also building capacity in sectors where the majority of labour was employed.

According to the report, global unemployment stood at 184.7 million at the end of 2004, down from a revised 185.2 million in 2003.  Although the decline in unemployment was very small in percentage terms, it was a significant development, as it marked only the second time in the past decade that there was a year-over-year decline in unemployment.  In addition, the global employment-to-population ratio stabilized in 2004 at 61.8 per cent, from a revised 61.7 per cent in 2003.

Mr. Johnson said that the robust global economic growth rate of 5 per cent in 2004 and the positive global unemployment rate were only the “tip of the iceberg”, however, masking a troubling statistic:  of the 2.8 billion workers in the world, some 1.4 billion were considered “working poor”, living on $2 a day.  And for the few people that had been lifted out of extreme poverty -- living on less than $1 a day -- the slightest bump in the economic road would push them back below the poverty level.

Six key labour market challenges were on the horizon for 2005, he continued, which were expected to impact on the global employment situation and poverty reduction.  Those challenges included the fallout from the 26 December  Asian tsunami disaster, the HIV/AIDS epidemic -- expected to kill 3.2 million people of working age in 2005 alone -- agricultural productivity in developing economies, outsourcing of employment, working conditions in the informal economy, and youth employment, all of which required immediate attention and a sustained response by governments.

Mr. Johnson said that the trends, particularly how they would affect sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia, called for policy-makers to look closely at improvements in areas like agriculture, as well as at outsourcing and migration policies.  The only asset many working poor people had was their labour, so it was essential to provide them with the tools, information and technology to spur employment and productivity.

By example, he said that most of the working poor were involved in subsistence-level farming or small-scale agricultural enterprises.  Many of those people did not have the tools they needed to increase productivity.  Sometimes, the answer was as simple as providing the technology and basic equipment for medium- or long-range weather forecasts.  Poor farming communities also needed information about market fluctuations to help them determine where, what and when to plant crops.

Increased focus on improving employment as an element of poverty reduction was critical, because job creation was not included among the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, while productive employment certainly affected each and every one of those objectives -- either as an outcome or an input.  Responding to several questions, he suggested that collectives, along with cooperatives focused on small- and medium-sized businesses at the community level, could help improve productivity of agricultural entities and communities.

Asked about how the social dialogue mentioned in the report could increase productivity, Mr. Johnson said that employees and employers cooperating to improve working conditions, ensure fair wages and provide better job security -- through tenure, among others -- were sure ways to generate increases.  As salaries rose, workers could eat better food, get better health care, and generally improve their livelihoods.  Those basic lifestyle improvements translated into increased productivity and were equally beneficial for employers.

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