SOCIAL DIALOGUE Employers

The evolving labour market scene has major implications for employers' associations, though their ability to respond to changing needs varies greatly. The important challenge for employers' associations has been helping their members to understand the emerging business environment and to respond to growing expectations for a wider range of services. As well as promoting and diffusing sound practices on human resources and industrial relations, they have been sharing insights on successful restructuring, helping companies improve their public profile and forging business networks.

A significant determinant of the role of employers' organizations has tended to be degree of centralization. Where bargaining is conducted at the sector or central level, central employers' associations remain strong, but where bargaining has been more enterprise-based, associations have tended to form decentralized structures. With the general shrinking of collective bargaining, the influence of employers' associations in these areas has been diminishing. They have also been encountering competition from private consultancies and other types of association that offer similar services.

Employers' organizations face particular problems in developing countries, where the modern private sector is small or diffused. They have been even slower to get off the ground in transition countries, where they often face legal, cultural and economic barriers.