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	ILO warns of widespread insecurity in the global labour market by International Labour Organization (ILO)   May 2015   Only one quarter of workers worldwide is estimated to have a stable employment relationship, according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO).   The World Employment and Social Outlook 2015 (WESO) finds that, among countries with available data (covering 84 per cent of the global workforce), three quarters of workers are employed on temporary or short-term contracts, in informal jobs often without any contract, under own-account arrangements or in unpaid family jobs.   Over 60 per cent of all workers lack any kind of employment contract, with most of them engaged in own-account* or contributing family work in the developing world. However, even among wage and salaried workers, less than half (42 per cent) are working on a permanent contract.   The report, entitled The Changing Nature of Jobs, shows that while wage and salaried work is growing worldwide, it still accounts for only half of global employment, with wide variations across regions. For example, in the developed economies and Central and South-Eastern Europe, around eight in ten workers are employees, whereas in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa the figure is closer to two in ten.   Another current trend is the rise in part-time employment, especially among women. In the majority of countries with available information, part-time jobs outpaced gains in full-time jobs between 2009 and 2013.   “These new figures point to an increasingly diversified world of work. In some cases, non-standard forms of work can help people get a foothold into the job market. But these emerging trends are also a reflection of the widespread insecurity that’s affecting many workers worldwide today,” said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.   “The shift we’re seeing from the traditional employment relationship to more non-standard forms of employment is in many cases associated with the rise in inequality and poverty rates in many countries,” added Ryder. “What’s more, these trends risk perpetuating the vicious circle of weak global demand and slow job creation that has characterized the global economy and many labour markets throughout the post-crisis period.”   “The way forward is to ensure that policies take into consideration the evolution of how we work today. This means stimulating investment opportunities to boost job creation and productivity, while ensuring adequate income security to all types of workers, not just those on stable contracts,” said Ryder.   Growing inequalities   Income inequality is increasing or remains high in the majority of countries – a trend that is aggravated by the rising incidence of non-permanent forms of employment, growing unemployment and inactivity. The income gap between permanent and non-permanent workers has increased over the past decade.   The report finds that despite the positive steps made towards improving pension coverage, social protection, such as unemployment benefits, is still mainly available only for regular employees. For the self-employed, even pensions are scarce: in 2013, only 16 per cent of the self-employed contributed to a pension scheme.   Labour regulation matters   According to the report’s authors there is a growing recognition that labour regulation is necessary to protect workers – especially those in non-standard work – from arbitrary or unfair treatment and to enable effective contracts between employers and workers.   Employment protection laws have been very gradually strengthening over time, a trend that is common across most countries and regions. However, in Europe, labour protection has generally decreased since 2008 when the global financial crisis started.   “The key issue is to match regulation to an increasingly diversified labour market,” said Raymond Torres, Director of the ILO Research Department and lead author of the report. “Well-designed regulations can support both economic growth and social cohesion.”   Global supply chains   The report finally looks at the increasing importance of global supply chains (GSCs) in shaping some of the employment and income patterns that are observed in labour markets today.   An estimate based on some 40 countries with available data finds that more than one in five jobs worldwide is linked to global supply chains – that is, jobs that contribute to the production of goods and services that are either consumed or further processed in other countries.   The report considers various policies that can assist global supply chains to bring benefits to enterprises and economies as well as to workers, something that has not always been the case in certain sectors where GSCs are common.   Other key trends and data from the report:   At the global level, employment growth has stalled at a rate of around 1.4 per cent annually since 2011. In the developed economies and European Union, employment growth since 2008 has averaged only 0.1 per cent annually, compared with 0.9 per cent between 2000 and 2007.   Nearly 73 per cent of the global jobs gap in 2014 was due to a shortfall in employment among women who make up only around 40 per cent of the global labour force.   The direct impact of the global jobs gap on the aggregate wage bill is substantial: it corresponds to an estimated US$ 1.218 trillion in lost wages around the world. This is the equivalent to about 1.2 per cent of total annual global output and approximately 2 per cent of total global consumption.   In addition to the reduction in the global wage bill due to the jobs gap, slower wage growth has also had a substantial impact on the aggregate wage bill. For example, in the developed economies and the European Union, slower wage growth during the crisis and post-crisis periods corresponded to an estimated $485 billion reduction in the region’s aggregate wage bill in 2013.   Because of multiplier effects from increased wages, higher consumption, and increased investment levels, closing the global jobs gap would add an estimated $3.7 trillion to global GDP – equal to a one-time, 3.6 per cent boost to global output.   Across 86 countries covering 65 per cent of global employment, more than 17 per cent of employed persons were working on a part-time basis of less than 30 hours per week. The number of women engaged in part-time employment stood at 24 per cent compared with 12.4 per cent for men.   Out of 40 countries (representing two thirds of the global labour force), 453 million people were employed in global supply chains in 2013, compared with 296 million in 1995. This represents a share of 20.6 per cent in total employment in the countries covered, compared with 16.4 per cent in 1995.   At the global level, 52 per cent of employees are currently affiliated to a pension scheme, compared with 16 per cent of the self-employed.   Nearly 80 per cent of employees with a permanent contract are currently contributing to a pension scheme, compared with just above half (51 per cent) of employees with temporary contracts. Visit the related web page
	Better tax systems bolster budgets and give governments more funds to invest in social programs by Tax Justice Network, agencies   April 2015   Substantial funding will be required to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that the United Nations is expected to adopt in September, global experts say. The goals address a wide range of issues from healthcare for all, to education, water, energy and protecting the environment.   But in an era of budget austerity, some Western governments have stated, ahead of a development finance summit in Addis Ababa in July, that foreign aid will be insufficient alone to do the job. Total official development aid (ODA) currently runs at about $131 billion a year.   Heads of state must embrace new financing frameworks, one that mobilises ODA, higher levels of government revenues and appropriately realized private investments, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday.   "Much more is needed. We need to shift the conversation from billions (of dollars) to trillions," Ban told a World Bank panel on development finance.   Improving tax collection in countries was on the agenda at several meetings held this week during the World Bank/International Monetary Fund(IMF) spring meetings to discuss new models for increasing development finance.   Better tax systems would bolster budgets and give governments more funds to invest in social programmes. In many low-income countries, tax as a percent of GDP is under 15 percent against at least 24 percent in advanced economies, IMF data show. Finance ministers asked for more technical help.   But equally pressing is the need to crack down on illicit finance, tax evasion by multinational corporations and unjust mining and energy contracts that rob countries of their natural resource wealth, said Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.   Multinational corporations have immense expertise on how to exploit tax loopholes, financial knowledge that developing countries lack rendering them unable to capture corporate taxes on profits earned in their countries, she said.   "We are losing a lot of money," Okonjo-Iweala said. "ODA matters but generating our own resources matters even more."   A U.N. panel led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki has estimated that Africa loses $50 billion a year to illict finance, double the amount of official development aid that flows into the region, and that multinationals account for 60 percent of the lost revenues.   World Bank Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati singled out fighting tax evasion and illicit finance, including the offshore hubs and shell companies used to transfer money, as important elements for addressing the shortfall in development finance.   One U.N. study estimated that $250-300 billion a year in development finance is lost through the outflow of potential revenues that can be taxed.   Indrawati said sophisticated financial centers act as "quasi-enablers," assisting corrupt individuals and legitimate companies in diverting money from the poor.   "For the schoolchild in Haiti, the new mother in Malawi or the farmer in Bangladesh, these losses have real impact. They result in classrooms that are overcrowded, health clinics that are never built and water that is never delivered," she said.   The G20 leaders of advanced and major developing countries have drawn up proposals for sharing tax information and improving corporate tax fairness, and have pledged to set up registries on who owns assets stashed in opaque corporate structures. But these discussions have been underway for a number of years, with little action undertaken to date, beyond ongoing discussions.   Indrawati said more action is needed, calling it an urgent issue for achieving the new development goals.   (A few countries have made much of taking very minor incremental changes to address these concerns. They are grossly insufficient to the vast scale of this global injustice impacting developed and developing countries alike. All should be wary of superficial and unsubstantial corporate branding exercises made to purportedly address these problems. Only real and substantial global actions will suffice)   http://blogs.oxfam.org/en/blogs/15-01-23-why-oxfam-calling-world-tax-summit http://www.oxfam.org/en/explore/issues/inequality-and-essential-services http://business-humanrights.org/en/tax-avoidance http://www.c20.org.au/2014/08/huguette-labelle-speaks-about/ http://www.actionaid.org.uk/news-and-views/global-plans-to-crack-down-on-tax-avoidance-leave-the-worlds-poorest-countries-out-in http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/imf-issues-revolutionary-warning-on-corporate-tax-avoidance/ http://www.taxjustice.net/ http://www.tackletaxhavens.com/taxcast/ http://taxjustice.org.au/reports/ http://www.globalwitness.org/greatripoff/ http://new.globalwitness.org/theme-finance.php http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_Revisited_120722.pdf   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Poverty/Pages/Fiscalandtaxpolicy2014.aspx http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Poverty/Pages/AnnualReports.aspx http://www.ibanet.org/Human_Rights_Institute/TaskForce_IllicitFinancialFlows_Poverty_HumanRights.aspx http://academicsstand.org/2014/06/press-release-un-goals-should-do-more-to-curb-tax-dodging-that-has-cost-poor-countries-trillions/ http://academicsstand.org/2014/09/experts-thousands-from-around-the-world-call-on-ban-to-put-an-end-to-tax-abuse/ http://academicsstand.org/2014/09/policy-options-for-addressing-illicit-financial-flows-results-from-a-delphi-study/ http://resourcecentre.savethechildren.se/library/tackling-tax-and-saving-lives-children-tax-and-financing-development http://www.rightingfinance.org/?p=977 http://www.cesr.org/downloads/fiscal.revolution.pdf   http://www.icij.org/project/swiss-leaks/banking-giant-hsbc-sheltered-murky-cash-linked-dictators-and-arms-dealers http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/08/hsbc-files-expose-swiss-bank-clients-dodge-taxes-hide-millions http://www.icij.org/offshore http://www.icij.org/project/luxembourg-leaks   http://www.gfintegrity.org/need-clear-sdg-target-illicit-financial-flows/ http://www.trust.org/item/20140226151645-jbwui/ http://www.socialwatch.org/node/16451 http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/meltdown/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/untouchables/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/money-power-wall-street/   http://www.ibanet.org/PresidentialTaskForceFinancialCrisis2013Report.aspx http://www.world-psi.org/en/billions-disappearing-through-tax-evasion http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/business/economy/multinational-tax-strategies-put-public-coffers-at-risk.html http://business-humanrights.org/en/search-topics   External links:   http://www.transparency.org/news/feature/unmask_the_corrupt http://www.transparency.org/news/features http://www.transparency.org/news/dcn http://www.transparency.org/glossary Visit the related web page
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