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Geneva, 11 April 2011. This was the joint message of the IOE and BIAC to the G20 during its Senior Employment Officers meeting in Paris on April 7.
For a long-term global economic and jobs recovery, governments will need to intensify efforts to coordinate coherent policy actions to restore confidence and sustainability in financial markets and the availability of capital. Pro-competitive regulatory frameworks that support innovation, trade and investment were also called for, as were structural reforms in labour markets for restoring employer confidence and supporting sustainable enterprise and job creation.
The employability of all groups through better education, effective skills development, including through continuously improving vocational education and training (VET), and improving the matching of skills to the labour market should be a key priority for G20 governments. Lifelong learning will better prepare all working people to meet the demands of labour markets, both today and into the future. The OECD Skills Strategy and the ILO Training Strategy, which was submitted to the G20, supports efforts in this area and is a good starting point for the G20.
Business also called for a youth employment strategy, including interdependent polices for economic growth and sustainable job creation. Private sector job creation for young people should be supported by structural reforms such as ensuring flexible approaches to work and effective minimum wage policies, reducing non-wage labor costs and implementing active labour market polices focused on youth. Better education, training and matching skills to jobs, as well as the promotion of youth entrepreneurship are essential and multi-stakeholder cooperation will be critical to addressing the youth employment challenge.
The Senior Employment Officers agreed the important role of social dialogue for effective employment policies and the implementation of lifelong learning. Addressing the challenge of long-term unemployment was recognized as meriting significant focus and further analysis by governments and international organisations. Employers and Trade Unions called for better employment policy coherence across all government levels and areas, between international organisations and including the social partners. Following the intervention of the IOE and BIAC on the need to formalize the informal economy, governments also decided to include this issue in work of the G20 labour process.