On the road to Geneva, Employment WG announces new deliveries

The third meeting of the Working Group focused on quality jobs and the promotion of decent work. The announcements included a repository of policies that promote social inclusion at work and the re-creation of a sub-group that will make its debut at the next meeting in May in Switzerland, ahead of the 112th International Labor Conference.

The third meeting of the G20 Employment Working Group (WG), held virtually on Friday (26), focused on quality jobs and the promotion of decent work. The meeting debated the role of creating and maintaining decent jobs as a way of ensuring social inclusion and fighting hunger and poverty, one of the priorities of the Brazilian presidency and one that should cut across the groups' debates. 

Maíra Lacerda, head of the Special Advisory Office for International Affairs at the Brazilian Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE), the coordinating ministry of the WG, stated that one of the focuses of the coordination is the delivery of concrete actions as responses to the challenges of the current international labor scenario. With regard to the central agenda of the day, two indications of deliverables were presented.

The first deliverable will be a repository of policies that promote social inclusion at work. The second deliverable is the re-creation of a sub-group dedicated to specifically debating income and inequalities in the world of work. According to Maíra, all the delegations welcomed the Brazilian proposals, especially the content of the deliverables. 

"We came to the conclusion that there are many repositories, a lot of data already available on the internet, and that it would be very useful for us to create a portal that connects all this data so that G20 members can consult it, as well as the general population. We will produce a term of reference for this," said the MTE representative.

Meeting in Geneva

After the first three meetings of the WG, the next meeting will be the first face-to-face meeting, bringing together representatives of the member countries and invited countries and entities in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting is scheduled for May 28-31, ahead of the 112th International Labor Conference, promoted by the International Labor Organization, a multilateral agency of the United Nations (UN).

"Geneva will host the first meeting of this sub-group that we are recreating, and we will also deal with the issue of a just transition that leaves no one behind in the face of the digital transformation and the energy transition. What can be done so that workers, especially the most vulnerable, don't lose their jobs or their income?" said Maíra, highlighting the challenge of building a sustainable society using models that don't exclude specific communities and/or peoples.

After the meeting on European soil, the working group is due to hold its last meeting before the Summit of Heads of State and Government on July 23-26 in Fortaleza, Ceará, as a ministerial body.

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