Global Jobs Crisis Conference: Risks, Challenges and Opportunities

Labor markets around the world are facing a massive socio-economic transformation. Digitalisation and automatisation, increasing financial and political insecurities as well as the lack of strategies and job skills to meet those developments leads governments, workers and society to new challenges and increases fears of unemployment. But there are also opportunities within the crisis: What possibilities can upcoming digital technologies offer regarding the creation of new jobs in the formal and informal sector? Which standards and characteristics will make employment more valuable and sustainable? And what policy can protect and / or support marginalized groups or disadvantaged areas that are particularly affected by these changes?

For this, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung India office in cooperation with the JustJobs Network (JJN) and the Center for Policy Research (CPR) — invited national and international experts and a wide audience from the fields of business, society and politics to discuss and find answer to those and other questions on the 31st October and 01st November 2018.

The first day focused on fundamental issues and started with an expert panel discussion which debated the conditions that are necessary to create an active and sustainable job growth. The session  concluded with a screening of the documentary "Small City Dreaming" that presented the working conditions in India and Indonesia and visualised them in the light of the event. The second day offered all experts the opportunity to participate in four different workshops focusing on urbanisation and migration, gender, digitalisation and job creation approaches, and to discuss them in the context of employment issues.

In addition to the theoretical understanding, the search for practical propositions played an important role. As a result, it became clear that there are no simple solutions to resolve the issue. Therefore, a broad interdependence of government, society and the private sector is needed to address the challenges of future developments. The conference was a first step to create possible concepts by inventing suggestions and measures that can be used as a starting point for future discussions and projects.

For more photos from the conference, follow the link Day 01 and Day 02