Global Employment Agenda

1. Global Employment Agenda • The employment dimension of ILO’s decent work strategy • Placing employment at the heart of economic and social policies

2. The Agenda is an invitation • To review • Rethink, and • Re-orient the policies of the past

3. WHY A GEA? • 24th Special Session of the UN General Assembly in 2000 (Follow-up to the Social Summit) asked the ILO: • To elaborate a coherent and coordinated international strategy on employment • Convene a World (Global) Employment Forum

4. FORMULATION OF THE GEA • Global Employment Forum identified a 10 Point Plan • Background Paper prepared on the GEA based on Sector- and Office wide discussions • Discussions with Regional Groupings and Social Partners • Discussions with IMF, World Bank, UNESCO, UNDP, WTO and UNCTAD • Comments from Academia and Employment Specialists • Discussed in the ESP Committee in its March and November 2002 sessions • Adopted by the ESP Committee and the Governing Body in the March 2003 session

5. What is new in the GEA approach • Promoting both the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of employment • Promoting productivity growth as the engine of sustained employment growth and decent jobs • Striking the best possible balance between security for the worker and flexibility for enterprises to adjust • Developing national employment agendas in support of decent work based on good governance & social dialogue : Institutions matter • Building global and regional alliances for better policy coordination for promoting employment. Hence a Global Employment Agenda

6. POSSIBLE TRADE-OFFS IN THE GEA APPROACH • Between quantity and quality of employment • Between security and flexibility • Raising productivity and increasing quantity of employment

7. Resolving or Mininimizing Trade-Offs • Decent work as a productive factor • Increase both demand and productivity of labour • Strengthening labour market institutions • Social Dialogue • Developing high degree of analytical capacity and judgement

8. Make economic and social policies mutually supportive • Accept and promote forces of change for productivity gains (trade and investment, technology, entrepreneurship, skills) • Facilitate adjustment to change (active labour market policies, social protection, health and safety) • Build a new macroeconomic and development frameowrk for full employment and poverty alleviation • Strengthen institutional framework for good governance

9. Building alliances for the implementation of the Agenda • Strategic alliances at global level (UN, World Bank, UNESCO, UNDP, FAO et al) • Youth Employment Network (YEN) • Strategic alliances for regional coordination (e.g. Jobs in Africa) • National employment policies based on the goals of the Employment Policy Convention, No. 122, 1964 and the Agenda • General Survey report (2003)

10. POLICY ACTION • Analyzing the labour market : Key indicators • Overall Macro and Incentive structure conducive to employment and productivity growth • Regulatory, institutional and governance structure • Leading sectors and programmes to boost labour demand • Policies to improve labour quality • Productive employment for poverty reduction

11. Key Challenges to be addressed • Moving from employment policies to decent work • Bring out more explicitly how this approach increases both quality and quantity of employment • Linking more closely ILO’s work at the enterprise/local level to the economic policy environment • Increase focus on ending discrimination in the labour market