The World Employment Confederation celebrated its 50 years anniversary, gathering over 450 experts from 40 countries for its annual World Employment Conference. The place to celebrate the event was where everything started: Paris.

The theme of the conference was the dynamic of the labour market in the digital era. Digitalization is redefining the concept of labour and its constant evolution demands adaptation from every sector of society.

Clearly, a number of concepts echoed strongly when we think about the reality of Latin American labour markets.

Annemarie Muntz, President of WEC presented the industry’s Manifesto, called “No future of work without social innovation”. The Manifesto states five key recommendations to generate dynamic, formal and inclusive labour markets. The industry represented by WEC supports over 50 million people and helps 14.7 million youngsters to access the labour market, providing decent work opportunities on a global scale.

Alain Dehaze, CEO of The Adecco Group, reminded us that the employment industry has played and will play a key role in the digital era, supporting people while they adapt to transformation and major changes. Life-long learning and digital skills and key elements for workers of the new digital era, even though recent research shows that only 50% of workers have limited or inexistent digital skills. Therefore, institutions and organizations must work actively on reducing the digital gap.

Jonas Prising, CEO of Manpower Group compared the current digital platforms with the industry’s reality 50 years ago, pointing out its potential for disruption and the very same concerns expressed by society. He was optimistic about the fact that, even though digitalization will modify many jobs, the human tough will remain irreplaceable, as the true added value shall be human.

Jacques Van Den Broek, CEO of Randstad, highlighted the importance of creating and retaining talent beyond contractual modes, as well as the need to reinvent social security in order to adapt to the new realities that labour markets pose.

Guy Ryder, General Director of the International Labour Organization, outlined the importance of Convention 181 on Private Employment Agencies, encouraging more countries to ratify this convention. In addition, he stated his support to the World Employment Confederation Manifesto, underlining the need to define the concept “social innovation”. Ryder claimed that ILO’s will is to nurture the labour market’s biodiversity “killing low quality forms of work and rising high quality jobs”. ILO’s General Director made a clear call to promote diverse forms of formal work, and highlighted the industry’s role in the agenda of the future of work.

These are key words for our region as, on several occasions there are differences of opinion, even within ILO, on the concept of different labour modes and the importance of the ratification of Convention 181 as an effective tool to tackle informality and reduce unemployment, particularly among young people.  

Similarly, Phil Jennings, General Secretary of UNI Global, avidly stood up for ILO Convention 181, and stated the need to apply the same regulation to digital platforms.

Antoine Foucher, the Cabinet Director of the French Ministry of Labour and Vander Morales, President of FENASERHTT, provided information on the French and Brazilian labour reform, respectively. Both reforms tend to modernize labour relationships, adapting them to the diversity of labour forms of the 21^st century.

Two panels addressed the strategic collaboration that emerges from the ratification of Convention 181. Public-private articulation to improve the efficiency of active employment policies. Even more developed labour markets, with lower youth unemployment rates, state the need to reinforce this articulation, strengthening the exchange of information and the strategies of skills training to increase employability.

The conference provided key information, data and casuistry so that social dialogue may be developed in tune between the region and the rest of the world. The jobs of the future are already being distributed and they will located were they find the best business environment, modern, formal, dynamic and inclusive labour markets with pertinent talent to develop.