III. Priority theme for 1997: productive employment and sustainable livelihoods
In its resolution 1996/7 of 22 July 1996, the
Economic and Social Council decided that the Commission for Social Development, as a
functional commission of the Council, should have the primary responsibility for the
follow-up and review of the implementation of the Summit, and decided to enlarge the
Commission’s membership from 32 to 46 and to annualize its meetings. The Council also
decided on a new structure of the agenda and multi-year programme of work of the
Commission for the years 1997-2000, with "Follow-up to the World Summit for Social
Development" as its substantive item.
The thirty-fifth session of the Commission took place in New York from
25 February to 6 March 1997, and considered the priority theme of productive employment
and sustainable livelihoods, with three specific topics: (a) the centrality of employment
in policy formulation, including a broader recognition of work and employment; (b)
improving access to productive resources and infrastructure; and (c) enhanced quality of
work and employment. For the consideration of the priority theme, the Commission had
before it the report of the Secretary-General prepared in cooperation with the
International Labour Office, with contributions from the United Nations system
(E/CN.5/1997/3).
It was noted that during the last couple of decades, the goal of full
employment had been displaced by concern about containing inflation, public spending and
fiscal deficits, resulting in an increase in unemployment and underemployment in most
countries. It called for more balanced priorities that would put employment growth at the
centre of economic and social policy-making without displacing those other important
goals. The report also noted that "high and productive levels of employment ... are
fundamental means of combating poverty, of ensuring equity, of meeting peoples’
aspirations for participation in economic and social life, and for preserving social
cohesion" (E/CN.5/1997/3, para. 6).
Among the recommendations made in the report were an emphasis on the
importance of increasing economic growth rates in order to increase the rate of employment
growth, and a recognition that this would require political and social as well as
macroeconomic stability; the importance of moderating the excesses of structural
adjustment strategies; an acknowledgement that for certain countries, "a more gradual
and selective approach to trade liberalization may be warranted" (ibid., para. 25);
and the value of policy incentives to offset market failure.
The Commission subsequently adopted resolution 35/2,4 which
contains a set of agreed conclusions on productive employment and sustainable livelihoods,
and decided to transmit them to the high-level segment of the 1997 substantive session of
the Economic and Social Council. Although many of the conclusions reiterated the
commitments made at the Social Summit, the following new or strengthened commitments may
be noted. The Commission recognized the importance of:
Full, productive, appropriately and adequately remunerated and freely
chosen employment as a central object of economic and social policies;
Setting time-bound goals and targets for expanding employment and
reducing unemployment;
Increasing productivity in rural and urban informal sectors through
improving access to credit, fertile land, productive inputs, infrastructure, basic social
services, information and extension services;
Balanced macroeconomic policies to ensure employment growth, price
stability and low interest rates;
Maximizing the quality and accessibility of such social services as
education and health both to improve well-being and to increase employment;
Promoting lifelong learning, beginning with basic education and
continuing with opportunities for further education, training and skills development;
Encouraging flexible working time arrangements such as job sharing
and part-time work in order to promote equitable access to work;
Increasing international, mutually reinforcing economic growth and
social cooperation;
Improving statistical databases on key social indicators.
Finally, the Secretary-General was requested, in the framework of
United Nations system-wide coordination, to assist the Commission for Social Development
and the Economic and Social Council to broaden and deepen the policy debate on employment
issues.
In May 1997, the Chairman of the Commission for Social Development
wrote to Ministers of Employment or Labour, bringing to their personal attention the
agreed conclusions and inviting them to use them in their national deliberations on the
question of employment and to disseminate the conclusions as widely as possible. Similar
letters were also sent to the heads of funds, programmes and agencies in the United
Nations system.
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As a follow-up to commitment 3 made at the Social
Summit to "promoting the goal of full employment as a basic priority of our economic
and social policies",5 the Secretariat organized a one-day seminar on
world employment strategy to discuss the Report on World Employment 1996/97 issued
by the International Labour Office, and to reflect on policies that may contribute to
improving employment projects at the national and international level. Over 70 persons
attended the seminar, including delegations, academics, officials from the Secretariat and
the United Nations system, and non-governmental organizations. Among the topics discussed
were global barriers to employment, policies for encouraging employment growth, promoting
and maintaining high levels of employment, and means for compensating the
"losers" by increasing employment.
The conclusion reached at the seminar was that employment policies had
become one of the major issues of worldwide concern, since unemployment and
underemployment had risen significantly in many parts of the world. First, high
unemployment and underemployment undermined social cohesion and stability, unjustly
inflicted economic and psychic deprivation on the unemployed and represented a waste of
resources. Secondly, it was clear that the much heightened concern about this issue within
the United Nations system had been demonstrated by the outcome of the World Summit for
Social Development, in particular commitment 3, and the re-emphasis placed by the
International Labour Conference in 1996 as well as the Commission for Social Development
which met earlier in 1997 on the central importance of the goal of full employment.
There were various hypothesis about the causes of unemployment. One of
the anxieties was that the growing globalization of the world economy would aggravate the
unemployment situation, while the other was that rapid technological change was bringing
about "jobless growth" and heralding the end of all hope for achieving full
employment. All of the panellists agreed that although those anxieties were
understandable, given the almost worldwide deterioration of employment conditions and some
dramatic episodes of corporate downsizing and job losses, often concentrated in particular
sectors and communities, they were greatly exaggerated.
Although the world economy was becoming more integrated through trade
and other financial flows, and offers mutual benefits and growing opportunities for
economic expansion to participating countries, it also generated social dislocation and
demands difficult policy adjustments. Some of the concerns included the fact that economic
policies were increasingly affected by the sentiments of a globalized financial market;
that greater openness also implied greater vulnerability to shocks in the international
economic system; and that heightened international economic competition and greater
capital mobility weakened the bargaining position of labour, exerted downward pressure on
labour standards and compromised the capacity of Governments to implement countervailing
social policies.
The important conclusion of the panellists was that in spite of
increasing globalization, national policies were still of great importance in determining
levels of employment and labour standards. Those policies had to be more sensitive to
considerations of international competitiveness, but that by no means implied that there
was no longer any policy autonomy.
The policies for creating productive employment and reducing
unemployment varied in scope and included economic, social and political aspects. Sound
macroeconomic policies and political stability were major factors in encouraging domestic
savings and investment as well as attracting capital flows in developing countries.
Education and training were of the utmost importance for increasing productivity and
facilitating people’s access and adaptation to new production processes and
technological changes in all countries. Infrastructure and human resources development
were priorities for almost all countries and Governments, especially as knowledge advances
rapidly.
International cooperation was needed to ensure a stable, open and
expanding global economy that allowed countries more room for macroeconomic management
without increasing international financial instability. Moreover, it was suggested that
international cooperation should be increased in order to counteract the detrimental
effects that adjustment programmes imposed on recipient countries.
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Two features of the global employment situation
since the Summit stand out: that the employment situation and trends vary widely between
countries; and that the level of government and public interest in the issue has increased
substantially.
Statistical sources are, of course, inadequate for a comprehensive
assessment of changes in employment, unemployment and underemployment since the Summit.
ILO estimates that close to 1 billion people are either unemployed or underemployed, which
is approximately 30 per cent of the entire global workforce.6 In the European
Union over 18 million potential workers were unemployed in May 1997, 10.8 per cent of the
workforce, and the trend has been upward since 1995. In other industrialized countries the
average unemployment rate has declined, from 11.6 per cent in 1995 to an estimated 11 per
cent in 1997. In the transition economies the official measured rate of unemployment is
about 11 per cent and this has been rising with the continuing decline of output. The
actual rate is probably considerably higher – as it may well be also in many
developed countries. Jobs were reported to be the main issue in the recent Canadian
election as they were at the last Australian election, and even in Japan unemployment is
causing concern. In the United States of America, where there is a great sense of
achievement about the decline in the unemployment rate to 5 per cent, it is relevant to
recall that part-time work, often with no benefits, the need to hold down several jobs to
earn a living income, and the number of low paid jobs have been increasing. Also, 1.6
million people, more than 1 per cent of the workforce, are currently in prison.
In a survey of electoral opinion in eight Latin American countries,
those polled cited unemployment as their country’s most serious problem.7
Unemployment, and even more pervasively, underemployment, characterizes most cities in
developing countries. Low productivity, low income work – or underemployment –
is the principal cause of poverty in developing countries. There is full employment in
only a few East Asian countries.
For these reasons the extent of public and political interest is
increasing. The agreed conclusions of the Commission for Social Development cited in
paragraph 39 above are a clear example. Others include the statement by the eighty-third
session of the International Labour Conference in June 1996 on employment policy, the
decision of the Denver Summit of Eight to hold a special ministerial conference on
employment early in 1998 in preparation for the Birmingham Summit, the negotiation of the
Amsterdam Treaty to succeed the Maastricht Treaty with a new chapter on employment, and
the attention given to the issue at the ECLAC meeting on follow-up to the Summit in Sao
Paulo in April 1997 (see paras. 6 and 7 above). This increased attention is leading to
additional policy initiatives that offer the prospect of embedding growth of employment
more centrally in national economic and social strategies, thus increasing the pace of
employment creation. Nevertheless, the immensity of the extent of unemployment and
underemployment show that this change of priorities will have to be maintained for a long
time for a major impact on them to be achieved.
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Notes:
4 Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 1996, Supplement
No. 6 (E/1997/26), chap. I, sect D.
5 A/CONF.166/9, chap I, resolution 1, annex I, para. 29.
6 ILO, World Employment 1996/97: National Policies in a
Global Context, Geneva, 1996.
7 ECLAC, Social Panorama of Latin America, Santiago,
March 1997, p. 151. |
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