Work is, if you like,
the chief locomotive of development and better standards of living
and I think that the UN and the international community has got that message,
and we see it reflected in the agenda.
Now this is all the more necessary because quite frankly,
the state of employment in the world is not great.
We know – and the ILO has been emphasizing this for many years
unfortunately that world unemployment is at an extremely high level
– there are over two hundred million people without work today.
The bad news is it’s getting worse, not better.
On current growth trajectories,
there is going to be more unemployment – not less –
despite all the talk of recovery in the global economy.
But in addition to that,
the crisis has still left a jobs gap of 61 million jobs world-wide,
it has destroyed 61 million jobs
shared between people who are now unemployed,
and people who’ve just simply withdrawn from the labour market
because they’ve given up hope.
The notion that mass unemployment is an inevitability,
and we have to live with it,
is a mistaken idea.
It would worry me in the first instance that governments, decision-makers say:
"well, we do have to live with unemployment because we cannot do better."
That you have to put to one side.
And the UN’s agenda does say: full employment.
So I think that this agenda, which as I say
It will guide the international effort on the global economy for the next fifteen
years,
by putting jobs, decent jobs at the centre, is getting the right message
and giving us tremendous opportunities for the future.
If you look back over history,
people have always been worried, they’ve always said
« my goodness, here comes the steam engine, here comes the internal combustion engine,
here comes the microelectronic revolution, it’s going to kill jobs ».
And strangely enough, the balance – the historical balance –
is that technology has actually promoted jobs in the long term
but it creates turbulence and disruption in the short-term.
Technology will disrupt, it will create turbulence.
The question is how good we are at managing that change,
and making sure that the dislocation that happens in the short term,
eventually gives rise to a longer path which is positive in terms of more jobs,
better jobs, and better opportunities particularly for our young people.
There are going to be winners out of this process, don’t deny it,
there will be losers, that’s what always happens,
but I think in general, whether you think you’re going to be a winner or a loser,
people are worried about what these changes are going to bring to our societies,
and how our societies are going to operate.
That’s one of the reasons why the ILO is launching a Future of Work initiative
as we approach our hundred years birthday, our centenary, in 2019.
We have to understand that we’re in an entirely new position when it comes to climate change
and everything that goes with that.
One thing we’ve learnt in the ILO -
and we have to keep very present in our minds -
is that climate change is our business;
it’s a world of work issue.
We are living in a world which is more and more and more unequal
and I think we all feel it.
We see a great deal of wealth produced, extraordinary productive capacity
and then being distributed in ways which make people distanced
rather than brought together.
And that can actually weaken the notion of common purpose,
common social cohesion,
it’s a bit of an “us and them” thing.
So inequality is a social problem, it’s always been a social problem;
I think it’s an acute social problem.
From the ILO we come to this with a mandate
and our mandate in the end is to promote social justice in the world.
And that’s the best way to keep our world peaceful.
So we come to this with a purpose.
All of this thinking about these wildly complicated issues have got
– and this is the biggest ambition of all -
to lead us to an agenda and a coming together
on how we are going to promote social justice.
In this maelstrom of change.