G20 labour and employment ministerial declaration: Preventing structural unemployment, creating better jobs and boosting participation

G20 Labour and employment ministers committed to take concrete actions to address the ongoing challenge of high youth unemployment, with around 75 million young people around the world unemployed.

Creating jobs and boosting participation are some of the top priorities for Australia’s G20 presidency year, strongly tied with the G20’s goal of strengthening growth. The Labour and Employment Ministerial Declaration includes policy priorities to prevent structural unemployment, create better jobs and boost participation across the G20.

The ILO, IMF, OECD and the World Bank released a series of reports over the course of the week, which helped inform the G20 labour and employment ministers’ discussions and the Ministerial Declaration.

Ministers and international organisation representatives also met with members of the G20 engagement groups representing sectors such as business, labour, youth and civil society, to hear perspectives from outside of government.

Each G20 member is developing an Employment Plan that sets out the actions they will take to address their employment challenges.

Following the meeting, G20 members will finalise their Employment Plans and contributions to Growth Strategies to put forward to G20 leaders at the Leaders Summit taking place from 15–16 November 2014 in Brisbane.