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Chapter 3: Expansion of Productive Employment and
Reduction of Unemployment
42. Productive work and employment are central elements of development as well as
decisive elements of human identity. Sustained economic growth and sustainable development
as well as the expansion of productive employment should go hand in hand. Full and
adequately and appropriately remunerated employment is an effective method of combating
poverty and promoting social integration. The goal of full employment requires that the
State, the social partners and all the other parts of civil society at all levels
cooperate to create conditions that enable everyone to participate in and benefit from
productive work. In a world of increasing globalization and interdependence among
countries, national efforts need to be buttressed by international cooperation.
43. Globalization and rapid technological development give rise to increased labour
mobility, bringing new employment opportunities as well as new uncertainties. There has
been an increase in part-time, casual and other forms of atypical employment. In addition
to requiring the creation of new employment opportunities on an unprecedented scale, such
an environment calls for expanded efforts to enhance human resource development for
sustainable development by, inter alia, enhancing the knowledge and skills necessary for
people, particularly for women and youth, to work productively and adapt to changing
requirements.
44. In many developed countries, growth in employment is currently great in small and
medium-sized enterprises and in self-employment. In many developing countries, informal
sector activities are often the leading source of employment opportunities for people with
limited access to formal-sector wage employment, in particular for women. The removal of
obstacles to the operation of such enterprises and the provision of support for their
creation and expansion must be accompanied by protection of the basic rights, health and
safety of workers and the progressive improvement of overall working conditions, together
with the strengthening of efforts to make some enterprises part of the formal sector.
45. While all groups can benefit from more employment opportunities, specific needs
and changing demographic patterns and trends call for appropriate measures. Particular
efforts by the public and private sectors are required in all spheres of employment policy
to ensure gender equality, equal opportunity and non-discrimination on the basis of
race/ethnic group, religion, age, health and disability, and with full respect for
applicable international instruments. Special attention must also be paid to the needs of
groups who face particular disadvantages in their access to the labour market so as to
ensure their integration into productive activities, including through the promotion of
effective support mechanisms.
46. Much unremunerated productive work, such as caring for children and older persons,
producing and preparing food for the family, protecting the environment and providing
voluntary assistance to vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals and groups, is of great
social importance. World wide, most of this work is done by women who often face the
double burden of remunerated and unremunerated work. Efforts are needed to acknowledge the
social and economic importance and value of unremunerated work, to facilitate labour-force
participation in combination with such work through flexible working arrangements,
encouraging voluntary social activities as well as broadening the very conception of
productive work, and to accord social recognition for such work, including by developing
methods for reflecting its value in quantitative terms for possible reflection in accounts
that may be produced separately from, but consistent with, core national accounts.
47. There is therefore an urgent need, in the overall context of promoting sustained
economic growth and sustainable development, for:
Placing the creation of employment at the centre of national strategies and
policies, with the full participation of employers and trade unions and other parts of
civil society;
Policies to expand work opportunities and increase productivity in both rural and
urban sectors;
Education and training that enable workers and entrepreneurs to adapt to changing
technologies and economic conditions;
Quality jobs, with full respect for the basic rights of workers as defined by
relevant International Labour Organization and other international instruments;
Giving special priority, in the design of policies, to the problems of structural,
long-term unemployment and underemployment of youth, women, persons with disabilities and
all other disadvantaged groups and individuals;
Empowerment of women, gender balance in decision-making processes at all levels and
gender analysis in policy development to ensure equal employment opportunities and wage
rates for women and to enhance harmonious and mutually beneficial partnerships between
women and men in sharing family and employment responsibilities;
Empowerment of members of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, including through the
provision of education and training;
A broader recognition and understanding of work and employment and greater
flexibility in working time arrangements for both men and women.
A. The centrality of employment in policy formulation
48. Placing the expansion of productive employment at the centre of sustainable
development strategies and economic and social policies requires:
(a) Promoting and pursuing active policies for full, productive, appropriately
remunerated and freely chosen employment;
(b) Giving priority at the national and international levels to the policies that can
address the problems of unemployment and underemployment.
49. Minimizing the negative impact on jobs of measures for macroeconomic stability
requires:
(a) Pursuing the coordination of macroeconomic policies so that they are mutually
reinforcing and conducive to broad-based and sustained economic growth and sustainable
development, as well as to substantial increases in productive employment expansion and a
decline in unemployment world wide;
(b) Giving priority to programmes that most directly promote viable and long-term job
growth when budgetary adjustments are required;
(c) Removing structural constraints to economic growth and employment creation as a
part of stabilization policies;
(d) Enabling competing claims on resources to be resolved in a non-inflationary manner
through the development and use of sound industrial relations systems;
(e) Monitoring, analysing and disseminating information on the impact of trade and
investment liberalization on the economy, especially on employment;
(f) Exchanging information on different employment promotion measures and their
consequences, and monitoring the development of global employment trends;
(g) Establishing appropriate social safety mechanisms to minimize the adverse effects
of structural adjustment, stabilization or reform programmes on the workforce, especially
the vulnerable, and for those who lose their jobs, creating conditions for their re-entry
through, inter alia, continuing education and retraining.
50. Promoting patterns of economic growth that maximize employment creation requires:
(a) Encouraging, as appropriate, labour-intensive investments in economic and social
infrastructure that use local resources and create, maintain and rehabilitate community
assets in both rural and urban areas;
(b) Promoting technological innovations and industrial policies that have the
potential to stimulate short and long-term employment creation, and considering their
impact on vulnerable and disadvantaged groups;
(c) Giving developing countries the capacity to select specific and suitable
technologies;
(d) Providing technical assistance and expanded transfer of technology to developing
countries to integrate technology and employment policies with other social objectives,
and to establish and strengthen national and local technology institutions;
(e) Encouraging the realization in the countries with economies in transition of
programmes for on-the-job personnel training, facilitating their adaptation to
market-oriented reforms and reducing mass unemployment;
(f) Promoting mutually supportive improvements in rural farm and non-farm production,
including animal husbandry, forestry, fisheries and agro-processing industries, aiming to
expand and diversify environmentally sound, sustained economic activity and productive
employment in the rural sector;
(g) Encouraging community economic development strategies that build on partnerships
among Governments and members of civil society to create jobs and address the social
circumstances of individuals, families and communities;
(h) Introducing sound policies to mobilize savings and stimulate investment in
capital-short areas;
(i) Maximizing the job creation potential inherent in Agenda 21 through the
conservation and management of natural resources, the promotion of alternative livelihoods
in fragile ecosystems, and the rehabilitation and regeneration of critically affected and
vulnerable land areas and natural resources;
(j) Encouraging the utilization of renewable energy, based on local
employment-intensive resources, in particular in rural areas.
51. Enhancing opportunities for the creation and growth of private-sector enterprises
that would generate additional employment requires:
(a) Removing obstacles faced by small and medium-sized enterprises and easing
regulations that discourage private initiative;
(b) Facilitating access by small and medium-sized enterprises to credit, national and
international markets, management training and technological information;
(c) Facilitating arrangements between large and small enterprises, such as
subcontracting programmes, with full respect for workers' rights;
(d) Improving opportunities and working conditions for women and youth entrepreneurs
by eliminating discrimination in access to credit, productive resources and social
security protection, and providing and increasing, as appropriate, family benefits and
social support, such as health care and child care;
(e) Promoting, supporting and establishing legal frameworks to foster the development
of cooperative enterprises, and encouraging them to mobilize capital, develop innovative
lending programmes and promote entrepreneurship;
(f) Assisting informal sectors and local enterprises to become more productive and
progressively integrated into the formal economy through access to affordable credit,
information, wider markets, new technology and appropriate technological and management
skills, opportunities to upgrade technical and management skills, and improved premises
and other physical infrastructure, as well as by progressively extending labour standards
and social protection without destroying the ability of informal sectors to generate
employment;
(g) Promoting the creation and development of independent organizations, such as
chambers of commerce and other associations or self-help institutions of small formal and
informal enterprises;
(h) Facilitating the expansion of the training and employment-generating opportunities
of industries.
52. Facilitating people's access to productive employment in today's rapidly changing
global environment and developing better quality jobs requires:
(a) Establishing well-defined educational priorities and investing effectively in
education and training systems;
(b) Introducing new and revitalized partnerships between education and other
government departments, including labour, and communications and partnerships between
Governments and non-governmental organizations, the private sector, local communities,
religious groups and families;
(c) Ensuring broad basic education, especially literacy, and promoting general
education, including the analytical and critical thinking that is essential to improve
learning skills. This is the foundation for acquiring specialized skills and for renewing,
adapting and upgrading them rapidly to facilitate horizontal and vertical occupational
mobility;
(d) Promoting the active participation of youth and adult learners in the design of
literacy campaigns, education and training programmes to ensure that the labour force and
social realities of diverse groups are taken into account;
(e) Promoting lifelong learning to ensure that education and training programmes
respond to changes in the economy, provide full and equal access to training
opportunities, secure the access of women to training programmes, offer incentives for
public and private sectors to provide and for workers to acquire training on a continuous
basis, and stimulate entrepreneurial skills;
(f) Encouraging and supporting through technical assistance programmes, including
those of the United Nations system, well-designed and adaptable vocational training and
apprenticeship programmes to enhance productivity and productive employment;
(g) Promoting and strengthening training programmes for the employment of new entrants
to the job market and retraining programmes for displaced and retrenched workers;
(h) Developing an enhanced capacity for research and knowledge dissemination by
encouraging national and international exchanges of information on innovative models and
best practices;
(i) Developing, in the area of vocational and continuing education, innovative methods
of teaching and learning, including interactive technologies and inductive methods
involving close coordination between working experience and training.
53. Helping workers to adapt and to enhance their employment opportunities under
changing economic conditions requires:
(a) Designing, developing, implementing, analysing and monitoring active labour
policies to stimulate the demand for labour in order to ensure that the burden of indirect
labour costs on employers does not constitute a disincentive to hiring workers,
identifying skill shortages and surpluses, providing vocational guidance and counselling
services and active help in job searches, promoting occupational choice and mobility,
offering advisory services and support to enterprises, particularly small enterprises, for
the more effective use and development of their workforce, and establishing institutions
and processes that prevent all forms of discrimination and improve the employment
opportunities of groups that are vulnerable and disadvantaged;
(b) Improving employment opportunities and increasing ways and means of helping youth
and persons with disabilities to develop the skills they need to enable them to find
employment;
(c) Promoting access by women and girls to traditionally male-dominated occupations;
(d) Developing strategies to address the needs of people engaged in various forms of
atypical employment;
(e) Promoting labour mobility, retraining and maintenance of adequate levels of social
protection to facilitate worker redeployment when there is phasing out of production or
closure of an enterprise, giving special attention to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups;
(f) Facilitating the integration or reintegration of women into the workforce by
developing adequate child care, care for older persons and other support services and
facilities;
(g) Encouraging cooperation between employers and workers to prepare for the
introduction of new technologies and to plan for their employment effects as far in
advance as possible, while ensuring adequate protection and adjustment;
(h) Strengthening public and private employment services to assist workers to adapt to
changing job markets and provide social safety mechanisms, occupational guidance,
employment and job search counselling, training, placement, apprenticeships and the
sharing of information;
(i) Strengthening labour market information systems, particularly through development
of appropriate data and indicators on employment, underemployment, unemployment and
earnings, as well as dissemination of information concerning labour markets, including, as
far as possible, work situations outside formal markets. All such data should be
disaggregated by gender in order to monitor the status of women relative to men.
54. Governments should enhance the quality of work and employment by:
(a) Observing and fully implementing the human rights obligations that they have
assumed;
(b) Safeguarding and promoting respect for basic workers' rights, including the
prohibition of forced labour and child labour, freedom of association and the right to
organize and bargain collectively, equal remuneration for men and women for work of equal
value, and non-discrimination in employment, fully implementing the conventions of the
International Labour Organization (ILO) in the case of States parties to those
conventions, and taking into account the principles embodied in those conventions in the
case of those countries that are not States parties to thus achieve truly sustained
economic growth and sustainable development;
(c) Strongly considering ratification and full implementation of ILO conventions in
these areas, as well as those relating to the employment rights of minors, women, youth,
persons with disabilities and indigenous people;
(d) Using existing international labour standards to guide the formulation of national
labour legislation and policies;
(e) Promoting the role of ILO, particularly as regards improving the level of
employment and the quality of work;
(f) Encouraging, where appropriate, employers and workers to consider ways and means
for enhancing the sharing of workers in the profits of enterprises and promoting
cooperation between workers and employers in the decisions of enterprises.
55. To achieve a healthy and safe working environment, remove exploitation, abolish
child labour, raise productivity and enhance the quality of life requires:
(a) Developing and implementing policies designed to promote improved working
conditions, including health and safety conditions;
(b) Improving health policies that reduce, with a view to eliminating, environmental
health hazards and provide for occupational health and safety, in conformity with the
relevant conventions, and providing informal sector enterprises and all workers with
accessible information and guidance on how to enhance occupational safety and reduce
health risks;
(c) Promoting, in accordance with national laws and regulations, sound labour
relations based on tripartite cooperation and full respect for freedom of association and
the right to organize and bargain collectively;
(d) Setting specific target dates for eliminating all forms of child labour that are
contrary to accepted international standards and ensuring the full enforcement of relevant
existing laws, and, where appropriate, enacting the legislation necessary to implement the
Convention on the Rights of the Child and ILO standards, ensuring the protection of
working children, in particular of street children, through the provision of appropriate
health, education and other social services;
(e) Designing labour policies and programmes to help eradicate family poverty, which
is a main cause of child labour, eliminating child labour and encouraging parents to send
their children to school through, inter alia, the provision of social services and other
incentives;
(f) Establishing policies and programmes to protect workers, especially women, from
sexual harassment and violence;
(g) Encouraging incentives to public and private enterprises to develop, transfer and
adopt technologies and know-how that improve the working environment, enhance occupational
safety and reduce, with a view to eliminating, health risks.
56. The full participation of women in the labour market and their equal access to
employment opportunities require:
(a) Establishing the principle of equality between men and women as a basis for
employment policy and promoting gender-sensitivity training to eliminate prejudice against
the employment of women;
(b) Eliminating gender discrimination, including by taking positive action, where
appropriate, in hiring, wages, access to credit, benefits, promotion, training, career
development, job assignment, working conditions, job security and social security
benefits;
(c) Improving women's access to technologies that facilitate their occupational and
domestic work, encourage self-support, generate income, transform gender-prescribed roles
within the productive process and enable them to move out of stereotyped, low-paying jobs;
(d) Changing those policies and attitudes that reinforce the division of labour based
on gender, and providing institutional support, such as social protection for maternity,
parental leave, technologies that facilitate the sharing and reduce the burden of domestic
chores, and flexible working arrangements, including parental voluntary part-time
employment and work-sharing, as well as accessible and affordable quality child-care
facilities, to enable working parents to reconcile work with family responsibilities,
paying particular attention to the needs of single-parent households;
(e) Encouraging men to take an active part in all areas of family and household
responsibilities, including the sharing of child-rearing and housework.
57. The improvement of the design of policies and programmes requires:
(a) Identifying and reflecting the specific needs of particular groups, and ensuring
that programmes are equitable and non-discriminatory, efficient and effective in meeting
the needs of those groups;
(b) Actively involving representatives of these groups in planning, design and
management, and monitoring, evaluating and reorienting these programmes by providing
access to accurate information and sufficient resources to ensure that they reach their
intended beneficiaries.
58. Employment policies can better address the problem of short- and long-term
unemployment by:
(a) Incorporating, with the involvement of the unemployed and/or their associations, a
comprehensive set of measures, including employment planning, re-education and training
programmes, literacy, skills upgrading, counselling and job-search assistance, temporary
work schemes, frequent contact with employment service offices and preparing for entry and
re-entry into the labour market;
(b) Analysing the underlying causes of long-term unemployment and their effect on
different groups, including older workers and single parents, and designing employment and
other supporting policies that address specific situations and needs;
(c) Promoting social security schemes that reduce barriers and disincentives to
employment so as to enable the unemployed to improve their capacity to participate
actively in society, to maintain an adequate standard of living and to be able to take
advantage of employment opportunities.
59. Programmes for entry or re-entry into the labour market aimed at vulnerable and
disadvantaged groups can effectively combat the causes of exclusion on the labour market
by:
(a) Complementing literacy actions, general education or vocational training by work
experience that may include support and instruction on business management and training so
as to give better knowledge of the value of entrepreneurship and other private-sector
contributions to society;
(b) Increasing the level of skills, and also improving the ability to get a job
through improvements in housing, health and family life.
60. Policies should seek to guarantee all youth constructive options for their future
by:
(a) Providing equal access to education at the primary and secondary levels, with
literacy as a priority and with special attention to girls;
(b) Encouraging the struggle against illiteracy and promoting literacy training in
national languages in developing countries, in particular in Africa;
(c) Encouraging various actors to join forces in designing and carrying out
comprehensive and coordinated programmes that stimulate the resourcefulness of youth,
preparing them for durable employment or self-employment, and providing them with
guidance, vocational and managerial training, social skills, work experience and education
in social values;
(d) Ensuring the participation of youth, commensurate with their age and
responsibility, in planning and decision-making with regard to their future.
61. The full participation of indigenous people in the labour market and their equal
access to employment opportunities requires developing comprehensive employment, education
and training programmes that take account of the particular needs of indigenous people.
62. Broadening the range of employment opportunities for persons with disabilities
requires:
(a) Ensuring that laws and regulations do not discriminate against persons with
disabilities;
(b) Taking proactive measures, such as organizing support services, devising incentive
schemes and supporting self-help schemes and small businesses;
(c) Making appropriate adjustments in the workplace to accommodate persons with
disabilities, including in that respect the promotion of innovative technologies;
(d) Developing alternative forms of employment, such as supported employment, for
persons with disabilities who need these services;
(e) Promoting public awareness within society regarding the impact of the negative
stereotyping of persons with disabilities on their participation in the labour market.
63. There is need for intensified international cooperation and national attention to
the situation of migrant workers and their families. To that end:
(a) Governments are invited to consider ratifying existing instruments pertaining to
migrant workers, particularly the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights
of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families; 15/
(b) In accordance with national legislation, Governments of receiving countries are
urged to consider extending to documented migrants who meet appropriate length-of-stay
requirements and to members of their families whose stay in the receiving country is
regular, treatment equal to that accorded their own nationals with regard to the enjoyment
of basic human rights, including equality of opportunity and treatment in respect of
religious practices, working conditions, social security, participation in trade unions
and access to health, education, cultural and other social services, as well as equal
access to the judicial system and equal treatment before the law;
(c) Governments of countries of origin, transit countries and countries of destination
are urged to cooperate in reducing the causes of undocumented migration, safeguarding the
basic human rights of undocumented migrants and preventing their exploitation;
(d) Governments of both receiving countries and countries of origin should adopt
effective sanctions against those who organize undocumented migration, exploit
undocumented migrants or engage in trafficking in undocumented migrants;
(e) Governments of countries of origin are urged to facilitate the return of migrants
and their reintegration into their home communities and to devise ways of using their
skills. Governments of countries of origin should consider collaborating with countries of
destination and engaging the support of appropriate international organizations in
promoting the return on a voluntary basis of qualified migrants who can play a crucial
role in the transfer of knowledge, skills and technology. Countries of destination are
encouraged to facilitate return migration on a voluntary basis by adopting flexible
policies, such as the transferability of pensions and other work benefits.
64. A broader recognition and understanding of work and employment requires:
(a) Acknowledging the important contribution of unremunerated work to societal
well-being and bringing respect, dignity and value to societal perceptions of such work
and the people who do it;
(b) Developing a more comprehensive knowledge of work and employment through, inter
alia, efforts to measure and better understand the type, extent and distribution of
unremunerated work, particularly work in caring for dependants and unremunerated work done
for family farms or businesses, and encouraging, sharing and disseminating information,
studies and experience in this field, including on the development of methods for
assessing its value in quantitative terms, for possible reflection in accounts that may be
produced separately from, but are consistent with, core national accounts;
(c) Recognizing the relationship between remunerated employment and unremunerated work
in developing strategies to expand productive employment, to ensure equal access by women
and men to employment, and to ensure the care and well-being of children and other
dependants, as well as to combat poverty and promote social integration;
(d) Encouraging an open dialogue on the possibilities and institutional requirements
for a broader understanding of various forms of work and employment;
(e) Examining a range of policies and programmes, including social security
legislation, and taxation systems, in accordance with national priorities and policies, to
ascertain how to facilitate flexibility in the way people divide their time between
education and training, paid employment, family responsibilities, volunteer activity and
other socially useful forms of work, leisure and retirement, giving particular attention
to the situation of women, especially in female-maintained households;
(f) Promoting socially useful volunteer work and allocating appropriate resources to
support such work without diluting the objectives regarding employment expansion;
(g) Intensifying international exchange of experience on various aspects of change in
the recognition and understanding of work and employment and on new forms of flexible
working time arrangements over the lifetime.
65. The development of additional socially useful new types of employment and work
requires, inter alia:
(a) Helping vulnerable and disadvantaged groups to integrate better into society and
thus participate more effectively in economic and social development;
(b) Helping older persons who are dependent or providing support for families in need
of educational assistance or social support;
(c) Strengthening social ties through these forms of employment and work, which
represents an important achievement of social development policy.
Note
15/ General Assembly resolution 45/158, annex.
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