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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Kirsten Newitt

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Kirsten Newitt

Jobs as a Scorecard: Latest trends in global labour markets - World Bank - 0 views

blogs.worldbank.org/...jobs-scorecard

employment World Bank crisis

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 30 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • According to the latest edition of JobTrends—a quarterly series monitoring labor markets in a sample of emerging economies—employment growth maintained its gradual ascent in the first quarter of 2012. In the countries surveyed, continued economic growth helped employment reach a growth rate of 2.9 percent in that period.
  • Keeping with the overall trend, labor markets in Europe and Central Asia continued then their steady recovery, with striking declines in unemployment in Lithuania, Moldova, Romania, and the Russian Federation. Similarly, selected labor markets in Latin America also improved, amid a slowdown in economic growth. In the four East Asian countries included in the report, employment and wage growth improved, with China’s employment growth jumping to 9.9 percent.
  • At the same time, however, the median unemployment rate increased slightly in the sample from 5.8 to 6.2 percent, signaling that some economies may have then started to have difficulties maintaining a high pace of job creation, as they were continuing to feel the effects of the financial crisis in advanced economies.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The World Bank now projects that developing country growth as a whole will slow to 5.3 percent in 2012, with GDP growth in high-income and Euro Area countries trailing far behind at 1.4 and -0.3 percent respectively
  • Despite this somewhat gloomy prognosis for the near future, emerging and other developing countries still have a great potential to “switch over”, and in the mid-term, consolidate their position as the new engines of global economic growth.
Kirsten Newitt

Are aid agencies facing an existential threat? - 0 views

www.odi.org.uk/...details.asp

development policy ODI South South cooperation

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 11 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • The global economic landscape has evolved dramatically since 2000: developing and emerging economies have been driving global growth, new sources of development finance have mushroomed and the diversification of actors, instruments and delivery mechanisms has continued. Transformations in the poverty map and new forces on the supply side of development finance are challenging the international development architecture. This paper aims to stimulate debate on the future of this architecture. The authors project that, by 2025, the locus of global poverty will overwhelmingly be in fragile, mainly low-income and African, states, contrary to current policy preoccupations with the transitory phenomenon of poverty concentration in middle-income countries. Moreover, a smaller share of industrialised country income than ever before will potentially close the remaining global poverty gap, although direct income transfers are not yet feasible in many fragile country contexts. Against this backdrop, new institutions, business models and practices are challenging long-established ‘aid industry’ actors. Agencies providing development finance for improved social welfare, for mutual self-interest in growth and trade and for the provision of global public goods will find that, in each area, disruptors to their programmes may force a change in positioning.
  • Kirsten Newitt on 11 Jul 12
     
    New report from ODI, July 2012.
Kirsten Newitt

World Bank: Consolidating and Accelerating Exports in Bangladesh - 0 views

www.worldbank.org/...ccelerating-exports-bangladesh

bangladesh garments

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 09 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • According to the report, “Consolidating and Accelerating Exports in Bangladesh” exports can grow faster, provided critical bottlenecks are addressed. Bangladesh needs to improve its trade logistics and infrastructure, increase supply of skilled manpower, and ensure compliance with Government’s labor standards.
  • The skills gap is becoming increasingly visible in all manufacturing sectors, and perhaps more so in the garment sector.  A high rate of rejection of final products is one evidence of this. Presence of skilled foreign workers is evidence of gaps in supervisory and management skills.  As the main vehicle for training workers, the publicly-funded Technical and Vocational Education and Training program needs to increase its relevance to better meet the needs of garments and other sectors.  More innovative ways to improve skills, such as trainee-targeted training vouchers, also need to be thought of.
  • Kirsten Newitt on 09 Jul 12
     
    New WB report on promoting export growth in BGD.
Kirsten Newitt

China amending labor law to protect 'contractors' - 0 views

www.chinadaily.com.cn/...content_15523904.htm

China labour law

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 03 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • The number of independent contractors has increased rapidly since the labor contract law was revised in 2007 to provide better protection for employees, said Uzhitu, vice-chairman of the NPC Finance and Economic Committee
  • Under the current law, employers can hire contractors to do temporary, supplementary or backup jobs. The proposed revision creates a clearer definition for these conditions. The bill also includes an article requiring agencies and employers to follow the principle of "equal pay for equal work" when negotiating payment for their contractors.
Kirsten Newitt

Pro poor maternity benefit schemes for rural women in Tamil Nadu - 1 views

www.epw.in/...it_Schemes_and_Rural_Women.pdf

women maternity India

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 22 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Kirsten Newitt on 22 Jun 12
     
    EPW article, June 2012 Describes a programme to provide women living below the poverty line with maternity benefits.
Kirsten Newitt

Aung San Suu Kyi signals change in Burma, but investors should proceed with caution - C... - 1 views

www.csmonitor.com/...rs-should-proceed-with-caution

myanmar

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 21 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Kirsten Newitt on 21 Jun 12
     
    John Ruggie on foreign investment in Myanmar, June 2012.
Kirsten Newitt

McKinsey report on global labour market trends - June 2012 - 0 views

www.mckinsey.com/...the_world_at_work

employment

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 18 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Over the past three decades, as developing economies industrialized and began to compete in world markets, a global labor market started taking shape. As more than one billion people entered the labor force, a massive movement from “farm to factory” sharply accelerated growth of productivity and per capita GDP in China and other traditionally rural nations, helping to bring hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. To raise productivity, developed economies invested in labor-saving technologies and tapped global sources of low-cost labor.
  • Today, the strains on this market are becoming increasingly apparent. In advanced economies, demand for high-skill labor is now growing faster than supply, while demand for low-skill labor remains weak. Labor’s overall share of income, or the share of national income that goes to worker compensation, has fallen, and income inequality is growing as lower-skill workers—including 75 million young people—experience unemployment, underemployment, and stagnating wages.
Kirsten Newitt

Shenzhen trade union promises more direct elections | China Labour Bulletin - 0 views

www.clb.org.hk/110069

China trade unions

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 15 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Direct elections at enterprise trade unions will become increasingly commonplace in Shenzhen, the deputy head of the city’s trade union federation, Wang Tongxin, predicted following the highly publicised election of a new trade union chairman at the Omron electronics factory in Shenzhen this weekend.
  • Although relatively few enterprise trade unions have direct elections at the moment, Wang said, the union federation would heavily promote direct elections so that in the future such events “will not be news, nor pioneering, but rather just normal work practice.” The union is already targeting some 163 enterprises in the city, each employing upwards of 1,000 workers, for direct elections over the coming year, he told the Southern Metropolis Daily.
  • The election came about as a direct result of a strike by several hundred workers at the plant two months earlier on 29 March demanding better pay and benefits as well as a more representative and effective trade union at the plant.
Kirsten Newitt

New ILO Recommendation calls for Social Protection Floor for all - 0 views

www.ilo.org/...index.htm

ILO social protection

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 15 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • The Recommendation requests countries to implement their Social Protection Floors as early as possible in national development processes .
  • Countries are encouraged to establish social protection floors (**) as a “fundamental element of their national social security systems” and as part of their social, economic and environmental development plans. Those countries who cannot afford the basic social protection measures could seek international cooperation and support to complement their own efforts.
  • The new ILO Recommendation is the first autonomous one to be voted on social security in 68 years. It comes 24 years after the last legal instrument on social protection was discussed by delegates from governments, workers and employers back in 1988.
Kirsten Newitt

The Promise and Peril of Post-MFA Apparel Production - 0 views

siteresources.worldbank.org/...EP84.pdf

garments poverty reduction World Bank

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 14 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Kirsten Newitt on 14 Jun 12
     
    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."
Kirsten Newitt

China and ILO sign South-South cooperation agreement - 0 views

www.ilo.org/...index.htm

ILO china South South cooperation

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 12 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Under the “Partnership Agreement for Promoting Technical Cooperation with a Focus on South-South Initiatives”, the People’s Republic of China is committing US$1 million over three years to support South-South cooperation and the Decent Work agenda. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China will assist developing countries in Asia promote full employment and decent work, through innovative technical cooperation projects that will facilitate the dissemination of good practices.
  • The agreement makes China the second of the so-called BRICS countries (Brazil, China, India, the Russian Federation, and South Africa) to sign a South-South agreement with the ILO.
Kirsten Newitt

Some thoughts on the outlook for Chinese factories in 2012 - 0 views

www.clb.org.hk/110068

china

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 30 May 12 - No Cached
  • Stephen Schwartz, chief economist-Asia at BBVA Research in Hong Kong, said he doesn’t see declining exports as a systematic problem at this stage because there’s enough demand on the domestic front. In the future, he said, it’s going to be very important for China to move to higher-valued added manufacturing and to increase productivity in order to offset higher wages. Although it’s a very slow process, he added, China’s ability to catch up quickly and do things quickly is always underestimated.
Kirsten Newitt

Jobs, Justice and Equity: Africa Progress Report 2012 - 1 views

www.africaprogresspanel.org/...L_VERSION_EN_FOR_PRESSPACK.pdf

Africa

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 11 May 12 - No Cached
  • Kirsten Newitt on 11 May 12
     
    New report published by the Africa Progress Panel
Kirsten Newitt

New World Bank / ILO inventory of policy responses to the crisis - 0 views

www.ilo.org/...f

crisis decent work ILO World Bank

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 27 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Kirsten Newitt on 27 Apr 12
     
    Database of responses with accompanying synthesis report.
Kirsten Newitt

Jayati Ghosh on aid to India - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ayati-ghosh-aid-india-uk-video

India development policy DFID

shared by Kirsten Newitt on 04 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Jayati Ghosh says aid from Britain benefits the UK more than it does India, and makes a negligible difference to relieving poverty. She discusses India's rapid growth and its social and economic inequality, and calls for an economic strategy that focuses on secure employment
  • Kirsten Newitt on 04 Apr 12
     
    Short video interview (3m) with Jayati Ghosh
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