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Trade negotiations -bilateral, regional or multilateral - routinely lead to debates on the implications for employment. Factual assessments of the employment and distributional impacts of trade agreements are, however, too often missing. This book tries to address this disconnect between the prominence of trade and employment linkages in the public debate and the relative absence of factual assessments of the employment implications of trade by taking stock of the most recent evidence, and by providing guidance on the design of tools to assess the employment impacts of trade.

"Women face higher unemployment rates than men globally, with no improvements likely in the coming years, according to an ILO report. The ILO's Global Employment Trends for Women 2012 looks at the gender gap in unemployment, employment, labour force participation, vulnerability, and segregation in jobs and economic sectors. Globally, the gap in unemployment and employment-to-population ratios was moving towards convergence before the crisis. The crisis reversed this trend in the hardest-hit regions. In the advanced countries, the crisis seems to have affected men in trade- dependent sectors more than women in health and education. In developing countries, women were strongly hit in trade-related sectors."

Employment and social protection are both foregrounded in the opening paragraphs. Announcement of new Employment Taskforce, to be convened under the Mexican presidency, with an initial focus on youth unemployment. Several international organisations, including ILO, IMF, World Bank, to report to the G20 Finance ministers on best approaches to growth and job creation.

ILO's report on Global Employment Trends 2013.

New report published by the Africa Progress Panel

"Wage levels in China have increased continually over the last two decades as the economy has developed and the private sector has created new employment opportunities. However, disparities among geographic regions, industrial sectors and between top executives and ordinary workers have also increased significantly, widening the rich-poor gap. Moreover, wage increases for China's lowest paid workers have often been eroded by higher costs of living, and the issue of wage arrears remains a serious and unresolved problem throughout the country."

World Bank note (May 2012) on wage and poverty alleviation trends linked to the garment sector. "A radical shift in apparel production between countries over the last few years has had mixed results in wages and poverty reduction across the developing world. This is particularly true since the end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) and the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) in 2005, which abolished export and import quotas. While most people predicted that China would gain, because of low wages, and all others would lose, many other Asian apparel exporters in fact benefited, such as Bangladesh, India, Vietnam and Pakistan. And not just because of low wages -salaries tended to increase in most exporting countries-but because of domestic policies supporting the textile industry. On the other hand, countries like Honduras, Mexico, Morocco and Sri Lanka experienced falling apparel employment, something that would appear to be bad news as jobs for women and workers most likely to be closest to poverty, were lost. But Mexico's experience suggests that shifting out of apparel may not be necessarily negative news when the country is moving up the value chain into more advanced manufacturing. In fact, this would be a sign of economic development as long as the shift into higher-value goods and services is possible. What matters is for countries to have policies that focus on improving competitiveness in the long-run, but also workforce programs to help workers make the transition. Increasing apparel exports is a good thing for poverty reduction in developing countries but moving up the ladder is an inevitable step in the quest for prosperity. Let's allow the textile industry to keep moving across borders and to help countries lift themselves out of poverty."

"The BSCI Code draws on important international labour standards protecting workers' rights such as International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, declarations of the United Nations (UN) as well as guidelines of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It sets out 11 core labour rights, which our participating companies and their business partners commit to incorporating within their supply chain in a step-by-step development approach. The 2014 version has been reinforced with new principles such as 'No Precarious Employment' and 'Ethical Business Behaviour'. "

"In contrast to the results reported in the 2010 Global Report... the newest estimates show that real advances have been made in the fight against child labour, particularly over the last four years. This means governments, workers and employers organisations, and civil society are on the right track and moving in the right direction. The investment, experience and attention paid to the elimination of child labour, with priority given to its worst forms, are clearly paying off. However good this news is, it has to be accompanied with an immediate reminder that success in this field can only be relative. As the assessment of the previous Global Report underlined, the progress is still too slow and its pace needs to pick up if the world community is going to come anywhere near to meeting the 2016 goal which it aims to achieve"

"The International Labour Organization and International Finance Corporation have announced the establishment of a Better Work programme in the ready-made garment sector in Bangladesh. As with its other country programmes, Better Work Bangladesh is a partnership with government, employers, workers, international buyers and other relevant stakeholders. "

New report by Ergon for the ILO looking at the ways in which strong, independent worker and employer organisations contribute to economic and social development. The study contains case studies from emerging economies and analysis of the roles played by freedom of association in a variety of spheres.

Improvement in labor market conditions has been the main explanation behind many of the poverty success stories observed in the last decade-that is the primary conclusion of an analysis of changes in poverty by income source. Changes in labor earnings were the largest contributor to poverty reduction for a sample of 16 countries where poverty increased substantially. In 10 of these countries, labor income explained more than half of the change in poverty, and in another 4 countries, it accounted for more than 40 percent of the reduction in poverty. A declining dependency rate accounts for over a fifth of the reduction in poverty in 10 out of 16 countries, while transfers and other nonearned incomes account for more than a quarter of the reduction in poverty in 9 of these countries. A further decomposition of the contribution of labor income to poverty reduction in Bangladesh, Peru, and Thailand found that changes in individual characteristics (education, work experience, and region of residence) were important, but that overall, increases in real earnings among the poor matter the most.

ILO's concept note on post-MDG priorities

The study focuses on practical lessons, and seeks to find out what types of activities are most likely to have the greatest impact on job creation, and how these activities affect different societal groups. It complements the World Bank's recent World Development Report on Jobs by offering practical lessons and recommendations to help the private sector create more high-quality jobs.