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ECOSOC 2009 High-level Segment

ILO Director-General presents “Global Jobs Pact” to U.N. Economic and Social Council

The Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Juan Somavia presented the ILO’s new Global Jobs Pact to the U.N. Economic and Social Council which began its annual meeting on Monday.

Press release | 06 July 2009

GENEVA (ILO News) – The Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Juan Somavia presented the ILO’s new Global Jobs Pact to the U.N. Economic and Social Council which began its annual meeting on Monday.

“The Global Jobs Pact is the productive response of the real economy actors to the excesses and mismanagement of the financial economy that underlies this crisis,” Mr. Somavia said in an address to the meeting. “Why the urgency? Because we have a global jobs crisis on our hands, with all the ramifications so well described in the recent General Assembly discussion.”

The ECOSOC 2009 High-level Segment is to meet until 31 July to discuss a range of issues, including international and financial developments in the world economy. Among those at the ECOSOC meeting were U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, representatives of the IMF and the World Bank, and other UN agency and political leaders.

The Global Jobs Pact was adopted on 19 June by the ILO’s annual International Labour Conference following a three-day ILO Global Jobs Summit involving heads of state and government, vice-presidents and ministers of labour, worker and employer representatives and other leaders. The Pact calls on governments and organizations representing workers and employers to work together to collectively tackle the global jobs crisis through policies in line with the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda.

The Global Jobs Pact proposes a range of crisis-response measures that countries can adapt to their specific needs and situation. It urges measures to retain persons in employment, sustain enterprises and accelerate employment creation and jobs recovery combined with social protection systems, in particular for the most vulnerable, integrating gender concerns on all measures.

“Workers, families and communities need to be reassured that their concerns – the people’s agenda which becomes the political agenda – is both a national priority and the object of intense international coordination and cooperation,” Mr. Somavia told the ECOSOC meeting. “We all know that although many efforts are underway, we can certainly do better. The Global Jobs Pact proposes actions that can be carried out immediately nationally and internationally.”

Mr. Somavia said the central objective of the Pact is to “shorten the usual lag time of several long years between growth recovery and employment recovery.”

Regarding resources, Mr. Somavia said “It is not just about how much more governments may need to spend, but how they concentrate policies on the issues that people care for. Each country will have to decide how many resources to put behind it in a fiscally responsible way. At the same time, it will be essential to maintain development cooperation commitments and provide additional concessional credit lines for Africa and least developed countries and countries without enough fiscal space to cushion the crisis.”