GENEVA – Creating decent job opportunities is a development priority across all regions and countries. That is the conclusion of the UN Development Group’s report following the global consultations on growth and employment in the post-2015 development agenda.

The report, published in New York at the UN General-Assembly, summarizes the main outcomes of the global thematic consultation led by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UN Development Programme (UNDP) under the auspices of the Government of Japan.

It notes wide agreement among participants, including experts, practitioners and the public, that employment and decent work should be one of the central development objectives after the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals passes in 2015.

The consultations were held at a time when some 202 million are estimated to be unemployed worldwide, with a further five million expected to be out of a job in 2015. And some 470 million jobs will be needed globally between 2016 and 2030 for those entering the labour market.

“The international community must give a strong and visible response to the pressing demand for more and better jobs,” said the ILO Director-General Guy Ryder at the report’s launch.

“The discussions on the post-2015 agenda represent a unique opportunity to put job creation and inclusive growth at the centre of the new framework,” he added.

The report warned that the lack of jobs and exclusion from labour markets increase inequalities, weaken social cohesion and diminish trust in political leadership and institutions.

Jobs are one of the best routes out of poverty." ILO Director-General Guy Ryder

Beyond the sheer number of new jobs needed, there are also around 900 million working poor, who are unable to lift themselves and their family above the USD two a day poverty line.

“Jobs are one of the best routes out of poverty and employment with rising income and dignity is a development goal that the future development framework cannot neglect,” Ryder said.

The outcomes of the thematic consultations were echoed by the recently published results of the Myworld2015 global survey, which showed that better job opportunities were among the top four priorities for the some 800,000 respondents. Job creation also emerged as a pressing need in nearly all the 88 countries where the UN had national consultations.

Participants to the thematic consultation on growth and employment made several key recommendations including:

1. Adopting a stand-alone goal on employment in the post-2015 agenda with clear and measurable indicators.
2. Shifting the policy attention and public discourse from the quantity to the quality of growth, focusing on a type of growth that is inclusive, generating decent jobs and reducing income inequalities.
3. Considering combining economic growth with the creation of decent jobs for the poor and most vulnerable as a pre-requisite for sustained inclusive growth.
4. Addressing the structural causes of unemployment and promoting economic diversification and recognising that governments must be responsible for supporting private sector development and structural transformation through coherent policies.
5. Governments to be more proactive in providing incentives to accelerate discovering and developing economic sectors with high capacity to generate employment.
6. Expanding social protection systems as a crucial policy tools to reducing poverty and inequality and fostering social cohesion.
7. Combining expanded social protection with employment generation programmes especially targeting women and low-skilled workers.
8. Strengthening social dialogue and the voice of workers so as to improve working conditions and ensure fair distribution of benefits.
9. Complementing official development assistance with reforms in the international trade, finance and technology transfer systems so that they are more conducive to employment generation in less developed countries.