GENEVA (ILO News) - The International Labour Organization will bring together more than 700 world political and economic leaders in Geneva Thursday to tackle what Director-General Juan Somavia calls the "biggest threats to human security affecting the largest number of people - rising unemployment and poverty." The situation has been aggravated by looming recession and the economic fallout from the events of September 11.
The Global Employment Forum, working on the theme of "Creating Decent Work in the 21 st Century," is the first tripartite gathering of governments, workers and business to assess the global employment situation after the September attacks severely disrupted the labour market and accelerated a widespread economic downturn.
"In the face of the first synchronized world recession of the globalization era, we need a global stimulus package to combat the crisis," declares Mr. Somavia. "The ILO is looking for a coordinated response from U.N. agencies, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to integrate global and national policy for creating jobs."
Mr. Somavia has also stressed the importance of the forthcoming Doha meeting of the World Trade Organization whose outcome "should offer real and practical opportunities for developing countries, working families and for the unemployed."
He pointed out that developed countries have better means to stimulate their economies than do developing countries, which are already labouring under the constraints of high debt, liquidity problems and lack of internal investment flows. "The biggest danger would be to apply expansionary policies in the North and more austerity and restrictive structural-adjustment policies in the South," warned the ILO Director-General.
The ILO estimates that 24 million extra jobs will be lost next year, plus nearly nine million in the hotel and tourism industry if the slump continues. However, before these events, the world already faced a major "decent work deficit" Mr. Somavia says. Today there are about one billion people who are unemployed, underemployed or working poor and 80 per cent of people of working age have no access to basic social protection.
"All this together represents a major crisis of human security. Too many people feel they have lost control of their own destiny," he added.
Among the highlights of the November 1-3 Global Employment Forum will be keynote addresses by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, winner of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize, to the opening plenary Thursday, and by Prof. Joseph Stiglitz, winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Economics, to the plenary session on Friday.
Other keynote speakers Thursday include Mr. Somavia, Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Pascal Couchepin, Minister for Economic Affairs of Switzerland and seven ministers of labour including Laurette Onkelinx of Belgium who is also President of the European Union's Council of Ministers of Labour, and the Chinese Labour Minister Zhang Zuoji. The former U.S. Secretary of Labour, Robert Reich, will speak at a reception in the evening.
Media Note: Accredited correspondents are cordially invited to attend the Forum. Facilities to assist print, radio and television journalists will be provided in room VI on ILO building level R-3. A complete schedule of the Forum events has been distributed and a discussion paper is in annex. A list of participants is available on the ILO website (www.ilo.org). For more information, contact the ILO's press service directly: Tel. +4122/799-7912; fax +4122/799-8577, email: communication@ilo.org.
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