'Jobs pact gives countries options to tackle unemployment crisis'

GENEVA: ILO director-general Juan Somavia says that the "global jobs pact", adopted at a summit here on Friday, "proposes a range of measures that countries can adopt to their specific needs and situation" to deal with the situation arising out of the meltdown and the resultant unemployment crisis. "It is not a `one-size-fits-all' solution, but a portfolio of options based on successful examples," he said.
In an exclusive interview with TOI, Somavia, who is in his second term as the ILO chief, spelt out the salient features of the pact and said that it calls for the ILO member-countries to take measures "to retain persons in employment, to sustain enterprises and to accelerate employment creation and jobs recovery combined with social protection systems, in particular for the most vulnerable, integrating gender concerns."
While tracing how the present economic crisis stemmed primarily from "financial mismanagement", Somavia said the pact also called for a "stronger and more globally consistent supervisory and regulatory framework for the financial sector so that it serves the real economy, promotes sustainable enterprises and decent work, and protects better the savings and pensions of people".
He said it also urges cooperation to promote "efficient and well-regulated trade and markets that benefit all" and avoid protectionism. It also seeks a shift to a low carbon, environmentally-friendly economy that would help accelerate job recovery.
He repeatedly stressed that ILO alone could not carry out such an onerous task. "This job pact is not some kind of project or programme of ILO. It is the joint responsibility of each and every constituent of ILO, of each and every country, government, and every social partner within it." He said "social dialogue was the key", and explained that countries where social dialogue had receded, had become weak. The employers, workers and the government have to talk it out through open dialogue and put a united front before world financial institution like IMF and World Bank and demand what they want for their development."
On the part of ILO, he said it would immediately begin to provide assistance to its constituents wanting to implement measures under the pact as well as work with other multilateral agencies. He pointed out that the pact was not about "how much more governments can spend but how they spend it".
Pointing out how important it was for the world economy to create more jobs rather than employment, Somavia said, "Wealth did not create more work (jobs), but work created more wealth."
He referred to an ILO study which had estimated that even if an economic recovery began this year or the next, the global job crisis could linger on for the six to eight years. He said, "With 45 million new entrants to the global jobs market annually -- most of them young women and men -- the global economy would have to create some 300 million new jobs over the next five years just to go back to the pre-crisis level of unemployment."
With prospects of a prolonged worldwide increase in unemployment, poverty and inequality and the continuing collapse of enterprises, ILO had convened the global jobs pact summit, which was attended by nine heads of states, many labour ministers and workers and employers and government representatives.
During the three-day summit, there was intense debate on the role of enterprise, employment policies, social protection, labour rights, social dialogue, development cooperation and regional coordination in addressing the job crisis, the ILO chief said.