Employment

The employment challenge is immense and growing. At the end of 2003, one-third of the global labour force of around 3 billion are either unemployed, underemployed or belong to the working poor. In most regions, the size of the informal economy, where workers bear a particularly high risk of becoming part of the working poor, is growing. Young people are particularly vulnerable with risk of unemployment and underemployment at three times the world unemployment rate of 6.2 per cent, and women remain among those groups most affected by unemployment.

Employment is the only sustainable way out of poverty and is critical to the achievement of the MDGs. The report of the World Commission identifies the promotion of decent and productive work as central to the achievement of a fairer globalization. The Commission's report also makes clear that progress in this direction requires coherent policies at local, national and international levels, backed by effective implementation of programmes, particularly at local and national levels. The focus of the ILO's work, within the framework of the Global Employment Agenda, is on growth, investment and employment, building on the ILO's World Employment Report 2004-05. Primary attention is given to research and the development of practical frameworks, tools and approaches which support ILO constituents in their efforts to promote quality jobs and economic growth with improved distributional effects. An important thrust of the work is the mainstreaming of employment concerns in macroeconomic, financial, investment and trade policies.

The Global Employment Agenda, as the employment pillar of the global decent work programme, provides the framework of the ILO's work on employment. It aims to place employment at the heart of economic and social policy-making. Implementation at the global level requires building alliances and developing policy coherence with other UN agencies and the Bretton Woods institutions. At the regional level, implementation is being undertaken, as in the case of Africa, under the overall framework of the follow-up to the African Union Extraordinary Summit of Heads of Governments on Employment and Poverty alleviation in Africa. Work at the national level in all regions starts from the framework of decent work country programmes and includes supporting constituents to develop integrated national employment strategies in support of decent work and embedding decent work as a central concern in PRSPs and UNDAF. Action at the local level is taken through new approaches to policy formulation and the design of area-based development that promotes enterprise clusters and sectors, competitive economic districts and sectors, employment-intensive programmes, skills development and access of the working poor to finance, while integrating rights, social protection and social dialogue. The Global Employment Agenda puts the highest priority on the active involvement of tripartite constituents through social dialogue and other means, on demonstrating that decent work is a productive factor, and on promoting non-discrimination.

Work under this strategic objective will centre on: skills and employability, youth employment, employment creation through enterprise development and employment-intensive investment approaches, labour market policies, productive employment for poverty reduction and development, and employment and globalization.