Ciett´s view

On Monday 20 January the ILO published its Global Employment Trends 2014(GET), its key annual publication on the latest global and regional estimates of employment and unemployment.

The report shows that unemployment around the world is rising. The ILO estimates that in 2013 there were almost 202 million people in unemployment, 5 million more compared to the previous year. If the current trends remain, by 2018 there will be over 215 million unemployed around the world. The ILO therefore states that active policies on the labour market are required. The report comments on the need to achieve “[…] effective public and private employment services, investments in and support for workers’ skills development, upgrading and re-skilling, including vocational training and entrepreneurial skills programmes”. These measures are instrumental to address inactivity and skills mismatches in the labour market.

Ciett is in full agreement with this statement, and stresses that private employment services around the world are already providing the Way to Work to more than 36 million people in their job life each year. In 2011, Ciett members pledged that over the course of five years, they would:

1. Support 280 million people in their job life
2. Help 75 million young people enter the labour market
3. Up-skill 65 million people, giving them more work choices
4. Create 18 million more jobs
5. Serve 13 million companies with the right talents to succeed

Ciett is pleased that the GET 2014 has improved its language towards temporary work towards a more nuanced position. Regarding the quality of work, the report clearly specifies the negative impact of involuntary temporary work, which Ciett fully agrees with, without generalising to all agency work.

With a good recognition of the role of private employment services in the labour market, and a more nuanced assessment of job quality, Ciett considers this publication to be a major improvement from previous years. The wealth of data on labour markets around the world will be an important source of information, also for an upcoming study on different forms of work in the EU, commissioned jointly by Eurociett UNI Europa.

Ciett will continue to work with the ILO to build on these positive results and have full recognition of the key role of the private employment services industry.