ILO: The world needs a global accelerator for jobs and social protection

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Geneva/Canadian-Media: To ensure a human-centered recovery from the pandemic and empower people to navigate the challenges of a rapidly changing world of work, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder has called on countries to back the Global Accelerator for Jobs and Social Protection launched by the UN Secretary-General, jointly with the ILO, during the General Assembly last month. It would increase investments in universal social protection, decent work, and green and just transition.

In a statement to the IMF and World Bank Group annual meetings, Ryder recalled how the pandemic has been particularly devastating for the most vulnerable, especially women, workers in the informal economy, and children, and underlined that they face a very different future depending on where they live.

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“The recovery is deeply uneven, spurred by vast differences between advanced and developing economies in access to vaccines, the fiscal capacity and ability of governments to respond, a growing digital divide and the threat of a looming debt crisis. This is creating a great divergence, which puts the recovery itself at risk and undermines trust and solidarity,” said Ryder.

An estimated 8.8 percent of total working hours were lost globally in 2020, he said. The equivalent to the hours worked in one year by 255 million full-time workers.

Governments across the world have implemented unprecedented employment and social protection response to protect people’s health, employment, and incomes, but these measures are insufficient to mitigate the full impact of the crisis and have left 53.1 percent of the global population unprotected — some 4.14 billion people, declared Ryder.

“It is time to show solidarity and to increase investments in universal social protection, decent work, and gender-equal societies,” said Guy Ryder.

The ILO Director-General encouraged countries to take a “high road” to social protection by investing in universal, comprehensive, adequate and sustainable social protection systems, in line with human…