Feature articles

January 2006 

• Which is best for the economy: employment stability or employment flexibility?
  20 January 2006 - A recent article in the ILO's International Labour Review analyzes the relationship between employment stability and productivity in six major sectors in 13 European countries. According to the authors, both, extensive and short job tenure can produce adverse affects on productivity. ...
• The Lego experience: "Putting flexibility and security together"
  13 January 2006 - Workers who are facing layoffs may want to know why employees at Danish toymaker Lego don't worry too much if their jobs are outsourced. It has to do with what the International Labour Office and others call "flexicurity". ILO Online reports from the Lego toy factory in Denmark.
• Asbestos: the iron grip of latency
  10 January 2006 - The ILO estimates that 100,000 people die each year from work-related asbestos exposure. Asbestos-caused cancers will kill at least 15,000 people in Japan in the next five years, and up to 100,000 people in France over the next 20 to 25 years. ...
• Working out of Disaster: Tsunami, one year after
  06 January 2006 - On the morning of 26 December 2004 a massive earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia triggered a series of tsunami waves that struck the coastal regions of Asia and Africa. In Asia, the coastal areas of India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand bore the brunt of the damage. ...

December 2005 

• Social health insurance in developing countries: breaking the poverty - health care link
  13 December 2005 - Every year, some 100 million people worldwide are forced into poverty by health care costs. Last week, more than 200 participants from 40 countries attending the "International Conference on Social Health Insurance in Developing Countries" in Berlin discussed how people can best be protected against financial shocks deriving from illness. ...
• International Day of Disabled Persons 2005 - Disabled people in Ethiopia: Making public services work for poor people
  01 December 2005 - Most of Addis Ababa's estimated 3 million population lives in slums and informal settlements. While 24 per cent of housing units have no toilets at all, 45 per cent share pit latrines. Earlier this year, the President of Ethiopia officially opened the first of 30 modern public shower and toilet facilities run by a cooperative of disabled persons in Addis Ababa with the support of the ILO. ...
• World AIDS Day - Employers in Cameroon: Saving tomorrow's workforce
  01 December 2005 - The business world is now having to deal not only with the human cost of HIV/AIDS but also losses in profits and productivity. At the same time the workplace can play a vital role in reducing the spread and impact of the epidemic. ...

November 2005 

• World AIDS Day: HIV/AIDS & work in a globalizing world
  30 November 2005 - The theme of World AIDS Day 2005 is "Stop AIDS - keep the promise" - of the international community to control the epidemic and help those affected. As current chair of the UNAIDS Committee of Cosponsoring Organizations, the ILO is marking this day by focusing on workplace action in the community at large and in the UN. ...
• World AIDS Day - Meri Pehchan: preventing HIV/AIDS in India
  30 November 2005 - About 89 per cent of the 4 million people living with HIV/AIDS in India belong to the most productive age group, those between the ages of 15-49 years. The pandemic has become a major threat to the world of work and immediate efforts are needed to protect some 400 million workers in the country from the deadly virus. ...
• Girls for sale: Preventing trafficking within China
  25 November 2005 - An estimated 94 million Chinese farmers migrated for work in 2002. The influx of such huge numbers of rural surplus labourers has created opportunities for those seeking to exploit the most vulnerable, i.e. children and young women. ...