What is a worker nowadays?
To mark the ILO’s Centenary, the University of Liège hosted a seminar entitled: “What is a worker nowadays?”. Valérie Van Goethem from the ILO Labour Law Unit discussed the changing employment relationship.
21 March 2019
Content also available in:
français
To mark the ILO’s Centenary, the University of Liège hosted a seminar which reflected on the effect of the current changes in the world of work on employment. Valérie Van Goethem from the ILO Labour Law Unit commented on a report on the future of work and the employment relationship, prepared by the University.
“Significant changes in the organization of work and work relationships have progressively led to a decline of the standard employment relationship in many parts of the world, especially in developed economies,” she explained. The increased occurrence of work outside the traditional employment relationship is raising concerns as to the validity of the binary divide between employment and self-employment.
“We should also take into consideration the fact that work in the context of a formal employment relationship is still an elusive goal in many developing countries, where most of the workforce is either self-employed or is engaged in the informal economy,” Ms Van Goethem added. Since the financial crisis, informal work arrangements have also increased in many European countries.
The ILO has recently launched major research projects to address these transformations of the world of work, especially on non-standard forms of employment and on the challenges related to the governance of work.
In October 2018, the 20th International Conference of Labour Statisticians adopted a Resolution concerning statistics on work relationships. This Resolution revised the previous Classification of Status in Employment of 1993. Instead of simply dividing groups such as employees, employers and own-account workers, the 2018 classification provides an organizing framework for statistics based on twenty mutually exclusive categories, defined on the basis of both the type of authority that the worker is able to exercise, and the type of economic risk to which they are exposed in a particular job or work activity.
As a result, a new category of "Dependent contractors" was established. It has to be seen now if, and how, the establishment of this new statistical category of "dependent contractors" will influence labour law reforms across the world.
“Significant changes in the organization of work and work relationships have progressively led to a decline of the standard employment relationship in many parts of the world, especially in developed economies,” she explained. The increased occurrence of work outside the traditional employment relationship is raising concerns as to the validity of the binary divide between employment and self-employment.
“We should also take into consideration the fact that work in the context of a formal employment relationship is still an elusive goal in many developing countries, where most of the workforce is either self-employed or is engaged in the informal economy,” Ms Van Goethem added. Since the financial crisis, informal work arrangements have also increased in many European countries.
The ILO has recently launched major research projects to address these transformations of the world of work, especially on non-standard forms of employment and on the challenges related to the governance of work.
In October 2018, the 20th International Conference of Labour Statisticians adopted a Resolution concerning statistics on work relationships. This Resolution revised the previous Classification of Status in Employment of 1993. Instead of simply dividing groups such as employees, employers and own-account workers, the 2018 classification provides an organizing framework for statistics based on twenty mutually exclusive categories, defined on the basis of both the type of authority that the worker is able to exercise, and the type of economic risk to which they are exposed in a particular job or work activity.
As a result, a new category of "Dependent contractors" was established. It has to be seen now if, and how, the establishment of this new statistical category of "dependent contractors" will influence labour law reforms across the world.