Targeting employment.

"Over 120 million people worldwide are officially unemployed and many more are underemployed, causing massive personal suffering, widespread social disintegration and huge economic waste. " So begin the Agreed Conclusions of the thirty-95th session of the United Nations Commission for Social Development, which met in New York recently. The main subject for discussion was productive employment and sustainable livelihoods. This was the first conference on the subject at the United Nations in New York--as distinct from the International Labour Organization--that anyone could remember.

Many of the conclusions re-emphasize positions of earlier conferences, particularly the Social Summit. There is some value even in that because it reminds countries of commitments which they have already made. Of greater interest though are new or strengthened commitments. Ten stand out.

The most important is the recognition that "it is imperative for all countries and the international community to reinstate the attainment of full, productive, appropriately and adequately remunerated and freely chosen employment as a central objective of economic and social policies". This is a remarkably resolute statement at a time when unemployment is terribly high and still growing in some countries, both developed and developing.

It was linked with an important innovation, the recognition that setting time-bound goals and targets for expanding employment and reducing unemployment "would give a strong signal of the increased priority to be awarded to this objective of full employment". One of the invited panellists, Ralph Willis, the former Australian treasurer, pointed out that many countries have set targets for the reduction of inflation or for economic growth, but few have ever set targets for the centrally important goal of employment growth and linked them with strategies for their achievement. The Commission picked up this remark and included the proposal in its recommendations.

The Commission naturally recognized that a necessary requirement for enhancing employment growth is economic growth, and that the nature of such growth determines the extent of the impact on employment. For example, in most developing countries the informal--unregulated--sector is a major area of low productivity income-earning opportunity. Therefore, increasing productivity in rural and urban informal sectors is vital. This requires improved access to credit, fertile land, other productive inputs, infrastructure and basic social services such as education; training and health, as well as to information and extension services.

Balanced macroeconomic policies are important in all countries in order to enable steady employment growth, price stability and low interest rates--the latter to facilitating private investment, housing construction and to minimize costs of public borrowing. A crucial yet sometimes disputed aspect of budgetary policy is the importance of improving as rapidly as possible the quality and accessibility of human services, such as education and health, to both increase the well being of citizens and stimulate employment in areas where it can be of particular value.

An instrument which combines some of the best aspects of economic and social policy, but which is sometimes neglected, is promoting consensual, equitable approaches to income determination through negotiation of prices and incomes policy. Effective income policies are a means of moderating unemployment, inflation and industrial conflict simultaneously.

Amongst many other important themes, promoting life-long learning was emphasized, beginning with basic education and continuing with opportunities for further education, training and skills development. For the first time in the United Nations, encouraging flexible working time arrangements such as job sharing and part-time work in order to promote equitable access to work was highlighted.

Naturally, the value of international, mutually reinforcing economic growth and social cooperation was also emphasized, together with other means of supporting development such as increasing trade by reducing barriers, continuing the growth of financial flows to developing countries, reducing debt and stabilizing and reducing risk in financial markets. The importance of improving statistical data bases on key social indicators was noted.

This is an impressive outcome. If these recommendations were applied, there would be faster employment growth everywhere and this would be mutually beneficial to all countries. The Commission recognized both the importance of political will and of appropriate, professional economic and social policies.