Time to seize the moment for a new social contract

When the International Labour Organisation (ILO) asked me to join its Global Commission on the Future of Work I was honoured and surprised. Never before had the esteemed UN body invited an industry practitioner onto one of its expert groups, usually the preserve of academics, politicians and trade federation leaders.

I jumped at the chance. Here were 25 eminent experts looking into one of my greatest passions: what we should be doing to prepare people better for a working world that’s in unprecedented transition, mainly due to technology, and thereby fight the global scourge of unemployment – especially for young people.

Our meetings were characterized by two things. The first was the breadth of representation among my fellow participants, with experts from India, Russia and all over the world. And the second was the shared passion of all concerned about the task ahead and its importance. 

Now, a year and a half later, we are presenting our ideas as a central contribution to the ILO’s centenary year. Our task was not easy: we all shared a sense of urgency about the issues, but knew we had to be both visionary and succinct. And while our work was conducted under ILO auspices, we needed to remain as neutral, independent and as non-governmental as possible.

Anyone who knows me will recognize immediately how close the core recommendations are to my heart. We resolved it was #TimeToAct; time for all of us to build that #FutureofWork people keep talking about. Stated more grandly in the Report: it is time to reinvigorate the New Social Contract. 

It's #TimeToAct; time for all of us to build that #FutureofWork people keep talking about. It is time to reinvigorate the New Social Contract. 

All of us felt economies had to be reoriented towards the importance of human capital and development. Coming against the background of automisation, robotization and the like, we felt such a “human-centred agenda for the future of work” would underline our shared conviction that it was time to put people first.

How? By focusing on three key steps: investing in people’s capabilities; investing in the institutions of work; and investing in decent and sustainable work. 

All three are crucial. But I would give the greatest weight to investing in people’s capabilities. Lifelong learning has become absolutely essential amid the breath-taking pace of change. To keep people’s skills valid – and ensure they remain employable – we must acknowledge a universal entitlement to lifelong learning, to support through transition and to a transformative agenda for gender equality and stronger social protection.

How? By focusing on three key steps: investing in people’s capabilities; investing in the institutions of work; and investing in decent and sustainable work.  

What does that mean in detail? We have to start by reforming education systems to ensure curricula are appropriate to the needs of the labour markets of tomorrow. We must underline the urgency of action to encourage companies to retrain and upskill workers. And we need to rethink investment in workforce training. So among the ideas I advocate are fiscal reforms to encourage reskilling, such as allowing employers to capitalize their retraining costs. 

Recently, we have seen examples of global companies announcing heavy job losses, while at the same time trying to sugar the pill by hiring (usually much smaller) numbers of people with different, more appropriate skills. What a waste of human capital! How many of those slated for redundancy could potentially be reskilled for the jobs of the future – or should have been given the opportunity to adapt earlier in their working lives?

 Lifelong learning has become absolutely essential amid the breath-taking pace of change.

All this, of course, must go hand-in-hand with reform of social security systems to allow innovations like individual portable training accounts. These should be created for all workers, including those not in a direct, open-ended employment contract, which is a large and rapidly increasing group of people.

I hope our report will be read, heard and acted upon. But, as I said, my fellow commission members are all very savvy people. So when we formally submit our report to the ILO for its 100th anniversary, we will make a small request: the opportunity to meet again, this time in a private capacity, in 12 months, in June 2020, to review what progress has been made in implementing our recommendations. You can rest assured that the importance of the issues concerned means we will not remain silent.