The ILO living wage programme

The ILO Living Wage Programme was launched in April 2025 by the ILO, the International Employers’ Organization (IOE) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) marking the first time the tripartite constituents of the ILO have jointly initiated a programme specifically dedicated to advancing living wages globally.

The objective of the Programme is to ensure that workers earn wages that allow them and their families to enjoy a decent standard of living, while safeguarding the sustainability of enterprises and economies and their capacity to create more and better jobs.

The Programme has been conceived as a multi-donor technical assistance facility designed to pool contributions from bilateral donors, multilateral agencies and private sector partners. It is open to donor contributions and public-private partnerships, as it seeks to expand its resource base and extend technical assistance to additional countries and regions.

The Programme rests on two pillars:

• Pillar 1 builds the evidence base by developing living wage estimates in line with the ILO principles for estimating living wages and by making wage-related data accessible through a global wage data hub.
• Pillar 2 puts that evidence into practice by helping constituents operationalize living wages through stronger wage-setting institutions, action on the structural causes of low pay, and alignment of living wage initiatives with ILO principles.

The Programme works with ILO constituents: governments, employers' organizations, and workers' organizations, as the primary drivers of change. It also partners with national statistical offices, academia and research institutions to generate the data the Programme relies on, and engages with multinational enterprises, supply chain actors, living wage initiatives, UN agencies, and development cooperation organizations to harmonize approaches and pool expertise.

The Global Coalition for Social Justice supports this effort through a dedicated living wage initiative — one of its 14 key interventions — aimed at ensuring that the growing global movement on living wages is coherent, credible and grounded in internationally agreed principles.