Employment and quality jobs
The first topic examines what we know about the link between growth and employment and whether this relationship has changed over time. Evaluating this issue naturally requires analysis of the role macroeconomic and structural policies plays in determining employment outcomes. Which instruments of macroeconomic policy are the most promising for employment creation? How can we assure that monetary and fiscal policy enhance access to finance and encourage development? What is the role of industrial and sectoral policy in determining employment outcomes? How do structural policies – such as financial or product market regulation – affect the link between growth and job creation?
The second topic looks at the role of human capital development. Youth unemployment has become a threat to the social, economic and political stability of nations. This sub-theme will explore how employers can constructively promote skill formation among young people, and what institutional set-ups and success factors could help in improving formal apprenticeship systems in three sectors with high employment potential.
All countries, irrespective to their level of economic development, have labour market regulations. As those regulations shape growth, employment performance and the quality of jobs, the third topic will identify optimal institutional and policies arrangements for enhancing both job creation and the quality of jobs in the formal and informal economies.
The fourth topic focuses on the role of SMEs in employment creation. Which policies are most favourable in fostering entrepreneurship, growing businesses and generating jobs? How is enterprise performance influenced not only by labour market regulation, but also by product market regulation?
Featured publications
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ILO Research paper No. 5
Trade and Employment in a Vertically Specialized World
This paper decomposes the employment effects of a country’s trade into five components, specifically the labour content (1) in exports, (2) in imports, (3) in the import content of exports, (4) in the export content of imports, and (5) in intermediates contained in imports from a third country using the factor-content and input-output methods.
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ILO Research paper No. 4
The comments of the ILO's Supervisory bodies: Usefulness in the context of the sanction-based dimension of labour provisions in US free trade agreements
This paper looks at recent complaints under the labour chapters of three US trade agreements – the CAFTA-DR, the US-Bahrain and the US-Peru FTAs – and undertakes a preliminary analysis of the use of the comments of the ILO’s supervisory bodies in the regulation mechanisms of labour provisions contained in those trade agreements
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ILO Research paper No. 3
Structure Matters: Sectoral drivers of growth and the labour productivity-employment relationship
The paper uses accounting methods to decompose aggregate labour productivity and employment growth into their sectoral components as well as into within-sector and employment reallocation effects for a sample of 81 countries.
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ILO Research paper No. 2
Macroeconomic policy advice and the Article IV consultations: A Development perspective
The paper undertakes a content analysis of 2009-2010 IMF Article IV consultations for a sample of 30 low-income and 20 middle-income countries and points out that insufficient attention have been given to employment generation, poverty reduction and expansion of social protection
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Global Report
2012 Global Employment Trends for Youth
This report examines the continuing job crisis affecting young people in many parts of the world. It provides updated statistics on global and regional youth unemployment rates and presents ILO policy recommendations to curb the current trends.
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Working paper
Regional Trade Agreements and domestic labour market regulation
Examines empirically whether regional trade liberalisation is associated with deterioration ("race to the bottom") of domestic labour standards beyond those reflected in the 1998 ILO Declaration on the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
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Working paper
Addressing the employment challenge: India's MGNREGA
This paper examines, in particular, the effects of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) programme on employment, wages and incomes of the rural poor. It also considers its effect on overall growth of the economy.
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Working paper
Monetary policy and employment in developing Asia
This paper assesses the role and challenges of central banks in the Asian region in using monetary policy to promote productive employment and achieve positive labour market outcomes
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Working paper
Macroeconomic policy for full and productive employment and decent work for all: Sri Lanka country study
This paper examines how to retain macroeconomic policy manoeuvrability in order to appropriately respond to its development priorities and to avoid the need for conditionality-driven policy setting.
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Working paper
Diverging trends in unemployment in the United States and Europe: Evidence from Okun's law and the global financial crisis
This paper presents estimates of Okun’s coefficients for a number of developed countries, and shows that there is considerable variation across countries, which captures the heterogeneity in the responsiveness of unemployment to the global financial crisis. The paper also looks at the relationship between these coefficients and labour market institutions.
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Book
Towards an employment-oriented growth strategy
This paper provides an analysis of the composition of growth and its implication for employment creation over the past years in Vietnam and assesses the employment challenge both in quantitative and qualitative terms.
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Book
Export and FDI-driven industrialization strategy and employment in Viet Nam
This paper provides analyzes of investment, trade, and globalization policies and a review of their impacts on the world of work and labour market in Viet Nam
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Book
Informal economy in Viet Nam
This book provides a global picture of informal economy in Vietnam and explores the determinants of transitions between formality and informality
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Book
Assessing policy effectiveness during the crisis: The case of Indonesia
This paper provides an analysis on the impact of the Government of Indonesia’s 2009 fiscal stimulus package using a dynamic social accounting matrix (DySAM) with an employment satellite.
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Book
Regulating for Decent Work. New directions in labour market regulation
This book advances the academic and policy debates on post-crisis labour regulation by identifying new challenges, subjects and theoretical perspectives. It identifies central themes in the contemporary regulation of labour, including the role of empirical research in assessing and supporting labour market interventions, the regulation of precarious work and the emergence of new types of labour markets.
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Book
From downturn to recovery: Cambodia’s garment sector in transition
This book brings provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact the downturn has had on a leading manufacturing sector and offers insight into the opportunities and constraints of a low-wage, labor-intensive export model for industrial development, with far-reaching social and economic implications.