May Day 2012 by International Labour Organization 4:13pm 1st May, 2012   01 May 2012    Tens of thousands of people around the world are taking to the streets today to mark May 1st. What else is new? Well, plenty.    The continuing economic crisis is hitting workers hardest. The macroeconomic policies of the past decades have downgraded the meaning of decent work.    The current growth model considers work as a production cost that must be as low as possible in order to raise competitiveness and profits. Workers are seen as being consumers of all sorts of loans rather than as having a legitimate share through wages in the wealth they contribute to create.    Lost in translation is the fact that quality work is a source of personal dignity, family stability, peace in the community and, certainly, a source of credibility for democratic governance. However, in too many places we have lost the basic notion that labour is not a commodity.    So, this is no ordinary May 1st. It comes at a time when deep-rooted interests are pushing to go back to business-as-usual, arguing that this is just another crisis that can be solved applying the same old recipes. It is not.    This trend is especially visible in advanced economies and particularly in the Eurozone, where policies that are trying to cope with very high levels of public debt are generating even higher social deficits that will also have to be addressed.    When youth unemployment rates hover around 50 per cent in Spain and Greece, it is obvious that we have reached the limits of this austerity-induced recession. This ignores the EU’s foundational values of justice and solidarity that have been enshrined in all major European treaties, from Rome to Lisbon. It also ignores the fact that paying back debt needs growth and jobs. Policies are also departing from ratified ILO conventions and disregarding the crucial role that social dialogue can play in times of crisis.    We need a socially-responsible approach to fiscal consolidation. In a democracy, it is more important to retain the long-term trust of people – especially the most vulnerable groups – than to gain the short-term confidence of financial markets.    Globally speaking, most large companies and the financial system in general have bounced back from the crisis, although some pundits claim that there are still some “fragile” banks. Governments spent billions of dollars to ensure their recovery. Workers have not received the same treatment. It is understandable that people marking this first of May feel that while some banks are too big to fail, they are too small to matter.    So what do we do? I believe we need to change the current global growth model. True, this is a model that has created huge amounts of wealth, but it is wealth concentrated in very few hands. This model has failed to generate the type of inclusive growth we were led to believe it would.    We need a different type of growth that is environmentally conscious and focused on people. This means a model whose main aim is to increase the general well-being of people and reduce inequalities, that measures success by the number of good-quality jobs generated, not the percentage of GDP growth.    The financial system has to be at the service of the real economy, not playing around with other people’s money. Banks have to go back to their original and valuable role of lending to sustainable enterprises so they can invest and create jobs. Employment, social and environmental policies need to be as relevant as macroeconomic policies. This is not the case today.    Back in the days of the so-called Washington Consensus, conventional wisdom said that inclusive labour markets, which provide quality jobs, social protection and workers rights, would perform poorly. The fact is that countries that invested in long-term social policies and capacity-building have experienced more stable growth. Many have even become more competitive and are recovering quicker from the crisis than countries that chose the fiscal austerity path.    We must move to a fairer, greener and more sustainable globalization capable of meeting people’s aspirations for a decent life. That means progressive access to a good-paying job with labour rights. That’s how middle classes emerged at different stages in different countries. That’s also why middle classes are now under threat, because it is increasingly difficult for people to find a decent job and to work their way out of poverty.    This concern applies to all countries. And no country or region can lead on its own. Moving towards a new era of social justice requires cooperation, dialogue and, above all, leadership. Leadership fired by human values – key among them, the respect for the dignity of work and workers.    * ILO Director-General Juan Somavia.    30 April 2012    Global jobs crisis expected to continue for some time, warns UN report. (UN News)    The global employment situation is alarming, says a new United Nations report released today, which also warns that recovery is not expected any time soon.    The World of Work Report 2012: Better Jobs for a Better Economy – published by the UN International Labour Organization (ILO) – says that around 50 million jobs are still missing compared to the situation that existed before the global economic crisis.    It also warns that the global jobs crisis is likely to get worse due to several factors, including the fact that many governments, especially in advanced economies, have shifted their priority to a combination of fiscal austerity and tough labour market reforms.    Such measures are having “devastating” consequences on labour markets in general and job creation in particular, ILO stated in a news release.    “The narrow focus of many Eurozone countries on fiscal austerity is deepening the jobs crisis and could even lead to another recession in Europe,” said the Director of the ILO Institute for International Labour Studies and lead author of the report, Raymond Torres.    “Countries that have chosen job-centred macroeconomic policies have achieved better economic and social outcomes,” he added. “Many of them have also become more competitive and have weathered the crisis better than those that followed the austerity path. We can look carefully at the experience of those countries and draw lessons.”    Another factor leading to a worsening jobs crisis is that many jobseekers in advanced economies are demoralized and are losing skills, something which is affecting their chances of finding a new job. In addition, small companies have limited access to credit, which in turn is depressing investment and preventing employment creation.    “In these countries, especially in Europe, job recovery is not expected before the end of 2016 – unless there is a dramatic shift in policy direction,” according to ILO.    Other factors include the fact that, in most advanced economies, many of the new jobs are precarious and there exists the possibility of increased social unrest in many parts of the world. According to the report’s Social Unrest Index, 57 out of 106 countries with available information showed a risk of increased social unrest in 2011 compared to 2010. The regions with the largest increases are sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa.    The report argues that if a job-friendly policy-mix of taxation and increased expenditure in public investment and social benefits is put in place, approximately two million jobs could be created over the next year in advanced economies.    Among the other findings of the report is that employment rates have only increased in six of the 36 advanced economies since 2007 – and that youth unemployment rates have increased in about 80 per cent of advanced countries and two-thirds of developing countries. Visit the related web page
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