Sara Elder

Aujourd’hui encore, les jeunes Africains peinent à trouver un emploi décent. Leur situation, notamment celles des femmes, ne s’améliore que très lentement. Si cette réalité empêche les jeunes d’exploiter pleinement leur potentiel, elle entraîne également un gaspillage de ressources pour les sociétés et peut mettre en péril la stabilité politique. Dans cet article, nous analysons la situation des jeunes et les mesures politiques nécessaires pour inverser la tendance, au vu des défis à relever et des lacunes à combler au niveau des politiques. Nous examinons également les politiques au niveau national car si en Afrique ces politiques sont généralement bien conçues, leur mise en œuvre laisse souvent à désirer. Nous présentons l’approche globale de l’OIT face à la crise de l’emploi des jeunes, puis la Stratégie UA/OIT pour l’emploi des jeunes en Afrique (YES Africa) qui est un bon exemple de cadre régional tenant compte des recommandations de l’OIT. Nous insistons sur la nécessité d’un changement de mentalité pour promouvoir des politiques globales de l’emploi et nous concluons par une série de recommandations visant à élaborer et à mettre en œuvre des politiques solides. Africa’s youth continue to face challenges in finding decent work. Progress to improve their situation has been very slow, especially for women. While this hinders young people to use their potential, it also means a waste of resources for societies and can put at risk political stability. We analyse the situation of young people and discuss the necessary policy frameworks that can make a difference, based on an analysis of challenges and policy gaps. We also analyse policies at the country level to show that on the one side policies in Africa are often well designed but that, on the other side, implementation is often lacking. We present the ILO’s comprehensive approach to youth employment issues and show that the AU/ILO Youth Employment Strategy for Africa (YES Africa) is a good example for a regional framework that takes into account the recommendations of the ILO framework. We promote the need for a shift of mindsets to promote comprehensive employment policy frameworks and conclude with a set of recommendations for good policy design and implementation.

Female participation rates over the past few decades have declined in the Asia and the Pacific region partly because of an increasing trend in educational attainment that has delayed labour market entry (a pattern closely mirrored in other regions). Yet, in the various subregions, female participation rates are high in comparison to the global average and also in relation to rates found in other regions with a similar level of development. As of 2021, only South Asia as a subregion fell below the global average. In South Asia only 1 in 4 women are participating in the labour market while other subregions show participation rates ranging from a low of approximately 48 per cent in Central and Western Asia to just above 60 per cent in East Asia (compared to 44 per cent globally or just under 50 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean). Employment growth among women in Asia and the Pacific over the past three decades has also been relatively strong. Between 1991 and 2021, average annual employment growth among women in the region was 1.1 per cent (compared to 1.2 per cent among men). However, this has not been adequate to keep pace with labour force growth in the region (this is true for both men and women). Alongside the relatively strong employment growth has been considerable improvements in formal employment. Indeed, across the region considerable reductions in informal employment have occurred in recent years, largely driven by trends in South-East Asia. On average, the share of informal employment for women has fallen by almost 1 percentage point per year over the past decade to reach 55 per cent in 2021 compared to just over 65 per cent in 2010. However, gender gaps and decent work deficits persist for women due in part to unequal gains from structural transformation. Despite some improvements, gender gaps persist in labour market outcomes. The gap in participation rates between men and women, at close to 25 percentage points, remains elevated and 5 percentage points higher than the gap present in Latin America and the Caribbean or at the global level. The gap is particularly pronounced in the South Asia subregion at almost 50 percentage points. This can be attributed to a combination of gendered social norms regarding intra-household distribution of roles and responsibilities for unpaid domestic and care work, and perceptions of acceptability of women’s role in the labour market. Moreover, with female employment growth in the region being modestly slower per annum, the share of women in total employment has, in fact, shrunk. In 2021, women made up 37.5 per cent of total employment in Asia and the Pacific, compared to 38.5 per cent in 1991 (globally the share of women in total employment has increased modestly to 39.6 per cent in 2021). Underlying the moderately weak job growth among women in the region is the fact that in a number of dynamic sectors, such as High value-added manufacturing (where it prevails), women did not benefit to the same degree as men. This is consistent with the findings of a recent ILO (2022a) report, which found that among the ten sectors with the highest employment growth rates in the region, only one had women taking up more than half of the jobs added over the past three decades.

In this report, we examine the potential role of voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) in addressing three major sustainability challenges for South Asia’s cotton sector: pest management, water conservation, and farmers’ prices and incomes. The report provides analysis and guidance for policymakers in South Asia on how they might a) use VSSs to boost intraregional trade and improve conditions in cotton production and b) use public policy and trade agreements to increase the impact of VSSs in the region. The findings and recommendations are also relevant to standard-setting bodies in cotton value chains. In Section 1, we show why regional action

The Asia–Pacific Employment and Social Outlook 2022 report pulls together the most recent statistics to generate an update of the impact on workers and enterprises in the region since the COVID-19 pandemic began nearly three years prior. It also examines the longer term trends to generate a detailed picture of where and how people work in the region, focusing on the sectoral composition of employment and its relation to decent work and development outcomes. In the context of increasing economic, political and environmental uncertainties, the Outlook argues that only by transforming how labour market institutions function will countries make a breakthrough to a human-centred future of work that links to inclusive and sustainable growth.

With an estimated 81 million jobs lost in 2020 and working-hour losses pushing an additional 22–25 million employed into working poverty, the report warns that the overall size of the fiscal response in the region has been insufficient to offset the costs of labour market turmoil. As countries in Asia and the Pacific continue to propagate policies to support recovery, the report promotes the areas of investment needed to navigate the crisis towards a human-centred future of work that aligns to the vision of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.