GENEVA (ILO News) - Representatives of workers, employers and governments will sit down at the International Labour Organization's Geneva headquarters on 13-17 May to discuss the prospects for the postal and telecommunications services industries. Both have faced serious difficulties in the past two years as a result of issues revolving around information and communication technologies, globalization and debt.
A report * prepared for the five-day Tripartite Meeting on Employment, Employability and Equal Opportunities in the Postal and Telecommunications Services examines employment trends in these industries in a wide range of countries, ways in which training and retraining can allow some 12 million workers in these services to adapt to change, and measures to promote equal opportunities within postal and telecommunications enterprises around the world.
The postal and telecommunications networks were in the public sector in most countries until the 1980s, when telecommunications services began to be separated from postal services and privatized. Both industries have experienced deep structural changes in the past twenty years.
Until mid-2000, the development of information and communication technologies, new networks and services, together with trade liberalization and globalization, had promoted further restructuring in both sub-sectors, and a trend towards further privatization, industrial consolidation and a more integrated communications industry. The internet and mobile phone boom had allowed the general downward trend in employment in telecommunications services to continue fairly gradually, while diversification had mitigated the decline in postal services employment.
However, the huge investments in corporate expansion and preparations for third-generation (3G) mobile phones and other developments until mid-2000 did not live up to expectations beyond that date. Over the past two years many telecommunications services companies have become exposed to heavy debts, causing a much faster pace of job cuts in many countries, drastic declines in telephone companies' stock market valuations, and some bankruptcies.
Meanwhile, postal services in many countries have undergone major structural and regulatory changes in recent years, with moves towards corporatization or privatization in some of them, as well as diversification into commerce, financial services, freight and logistics. As part of the process of trade liberalization in services, parts of the parcel and letter post businesses are being increasingly opened up to competition.
The postal services network, consisting of about 700,000 permanent post offices worldwide, employs around 6 million men and women, processes more than one billion mail items per day, and makes up the largest physical distribution network in the world (with about half a million motor vehicles). Even in the information age, for millions of people this global network remains the most accessible method of communication. Its global revenues are of the order of $200 billion per year. The telecommunications services sector is estimated to have had revenues of $1,010 billion in 2001, and employs around 6 million workers.
The meeting will allow governments, employers and workers to discuss how to ensure that these industries play their full role in enhancing employment, employability and equal opportunities. Women are more frequently affected by redundancy and other cost-cutting measures, older workers have less access to employability training, and in many developing countries firms are being left behind by technological developments, globalization, changing customer requirements and other changes in these industries.
* " Employment, employability and equal opportunities in the postal and telecommunications services", report for discussion at the Tripartite Meeting on Employment, Employability and Equal Opportunities in the Postal and Telecommunications Services, TMPTS/2002, Sectoral Activities Programme, ILO, Geneva, 2002. ISBN 92-2-112985-3. Price: 20 Swiss Francs.