Strengthening and sharing knowledge on effective national employment policies - Macroeconomic policies and employment targeting: three case studies, with special references to central banks

he protracted jobs crisis has brought to the fore employment creation as a priority policy agenda. For instance, G8/G20 Leaders’ Summits in recent years stressed the importance of addressing global jobs deficit. The G20 Task Force on Employment began generating a G20 employment agenda. EU faces a protracted jobs crisis and youth have particularly borne the brunt of the crisis. The European Commission called for coordinated growth and job creation efforts. Challenges of job creation today, however, are compounded especially because governments in the world search for effective employment promotion policies in the context of narrowing fiscal space and still gloomy economic outlook. Indeed, although influential drivers of macroeconomic policies and development agendas in the past two decades prior to the global financial crisis have been in demise, many countries are yet to implement an alternative policy framework that accelerates job creation in a sustainable manner. Against this backdrop, an on-going research work of the ILO is to propose an alternative policy framework suitable for today’s policy environment: heightened employment challenges in a context of limited fiscal resources. Achieving efficiency gains in policy interventions by enhancing policy coherence towards priority policy targets and sharpening policy focus on priority sectors is the gist of the policy framework. The proposed framework thus acts on two-pronged strategies, employment targeting and sectoral approaches to employment creation, and accelerate structural transformation of an economy into productive and competitive one. The proposed research project will reinforce the policy framework and thereby influence national and global debates on the nexus between macroeconomic stability and employment growth. It will generate evidence of the pivotal roles that central banks can play in pursuing the twin goals of macroeconomic stability and employment creation. Case studies of three selected central banks from developing countries would demonstrate the importance of the dual mandate of macroeconomic stability and employment.

Project symbol

GLO/13/52/ROK

Admin unit

EMP/CEPOL

Start date

01/08/2013

End date

31/12/2014

Total allocation

108785

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

108785

Development Partners

Republic of Korea, Expert Programme

Country/Countries

Global

Outcomes

Employment Promotion