euobserver.com (19.01.2023) Self-employed or employed? This question is at the heart of the negotiations of the proposal for an EU directive on improving the conditions of platform workers.

Home-delivery riders, or Uber-style app drivers are some of those who compose a sector estimated by the EU Commission to employ more than 28 million people. The number has been growing for years, and is expected to keep rising, reaching 43 million workers in the next two years.

EURACTIV.com (02.02.2023) After months of arduous negotiations, the much-debated and politically sensitive platform workers’ file was finally approved in plenary on Thursday (2 February), with 376 in favour and 212 against. The text enshrines a legal presumption of employment for self-employed platform workers and reinforces workers’ rights and protection in the face of algorithmic management. Minutes before the vote, centre-left lawmaker Elisabetta Gualmini, who spearheaded the work on the file, warned her peers not to believe the platforms’ narrative that the text “creates a general presumption of employment: it is not true, and it is impossible, both legally and technically”.

The Daily Star (31.01.2023) Bangladesh made a major step towards a universal pension scheme when parliament passed the Universal Pension Management Bill-2022 on January 24 with a view to bringing the country's growing elderly population under a social security system.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has enormous potential to promote global economic growth by more than 15 trillion USD. Additionally, it can advance social good by helping to combat climate change and biodiversity loss, reduce human trafficking,  improve healthcare, and support achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. AI also can strengthen the national security of the United States and other countries.

The report covers the extent and consequences of the labour market disruption caused by overlapping economic and geopolitical crises and analyzes global patterns, regional differences and outcomes across groups of workers. The report pays particular attention to the impact of the different crises on productivity, job quality and job opportunities and how these trends risk undermining social justice around the world.

guardian.ng (31.01.2023) A new International Labour Organisation (ILO) report, World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2023 (WESO trends), has raised concerns about inequality and effects of the global economic slowdown on the quality of employment. It warned that if left unaddressed, the challenges facing the world of work might threaten progress towards social justice. The report said the current global economic slowdown is likely to force more workers to accept lower quality, poorly paid jobs, which lack job security and social protection, therefore accentuating inequalities exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis.

consilium.europa.eu (30.01.2023) Council adopts recommendation on adequate minimum income This Council recommendation aims to combat poverty and social exclusion, and to pursue high levels of employment by promoting adequate income support by means of minimum income, effective access to enabling and essential services for persons lacking sufficient resources and by fostering labour market integration of those who can work.

G20 member nations consist of 2/3rd of the global population with 80% of global economic output. In this context, deliberation on the enhancement of labour holds significant relevancy. The 1st Employment Working Group (EWG)Meeting under the Sherpa track of the G20 will be held from the 2nd to the 4th of February 2023 in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. The Indian presidency of G20 has a mandate of addressing priority labour, employment and social issues for strong, sustainable, balanced, and job-rich growth for all.

NPR (27.01.2023) To developmental economist Lant Pritchett, "population decline" is a mild way to describe what could be a global demographic crisis. "The reaction is often 'ho-hum' as the rates [of population decline] are slow and hence the issue seems small and in the future," he told NPR in an email. But the problem is not small, he said, and falling birth rates could upend economies. Last week, China reported population decline for the first time in more than 60 years, raising questions about its future economic growth. Other countries are heading towards a similar fate. Slowing birth rates in the developed world are resulting in aging populations and smaller workforces. But in parts of the developing world, the youth population is still growing, and some countries are struggling to create enough jobs for an expanding working-age population. To economists, migration is the obvious solution. But the political implications could be harder to overcome.

East Asia Forum (18.01.2023) China has translated its economic development into improved social welfare. China’s quest for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for all while lifting 800 million people out of poverty is an example. Its experience in healthcare development provides transferrable lessons for developing countries in making progress towards UHC.

The use of telemedicine, or remote clinical consultations, was limited in most OECD countries before the COVID‑19 pandemic, held back by regulatory barriers and hesitancy from patients and providers. In early 2020, as COVID‑19 massively disrupted in-person care, governments moved quickly to promote the use of telemedicine. The number of teleconsultations skyrocketed, playing a vital role in maintaining access to care, but only partly offsetting reductions in in-person care. This brief describes how governments scaled up remote care during the pandemic and explores the impact that this massive shift to remote care has had on health care system performance

ndtv.com (27.01.2023) Social security issues will be on top of the agenda at the BRICS countries meeting to be hosted next month by South Africa, which over the Presidency of the five-nation bloc from China on January 1 this year. South African Department of Employment and Labour's Acting Deputy Director-General of its Labour Policy and Industrial Relations section Sipho Ndebele said South Africa's Presidency of BRICS would provide it with an opportunity to promote regional and global issues on the back of skyrocketing unemployment and the health fallout created by the pandemic.

The Diplomat (19.01.2023) Seniors living in poverty or working to supplement their income are on the rise as Japan’s public pension system cracks under a super aging society. 

fao.org (2022) The report analyses the state of social protection for agri-food systems workers in the region. Specifically, it provides an overview about existing social assistance and social insurance programmes, analyses their sensitivity to agri-food systems workers’ needs and characteristics and identifies countries´ main challenges. It also presents a series of good practices from Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, and Senegal.

Asian Development Bank (Dec 2022) It uses the bank’s Social Protection Indicator to assess the level of resources invested in social protection, the extent of coverage, and the benefit levels of social protection programs. Further data disaggregation provides the distribution of social protection expenditures in relation to poverty, gender, and people with disabilities. The report identifies measures adopted in response to the coronavirus disease pandemic and outlines future directions for social protection in the Pacific region.

worldbank.org (17.01.2023) The informal business sector is a source of livelihood for millions of people around the world. Despite its size and importance, business-level data that provide an in-depth understanding and cross-country analysis of the sector are lacking. To fill this gap, the World Bank has collected comprehensive data based on a representative sample of informal businesses using an innovative survey methodology. A recent working paper provides insights on businesses that operate without formal registration. It covers twenty-four cities in seven countries —namely, India, Iraq, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mozambique, Somalia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe— using these publicly available data. Here, we summarize the paper’s key results, focusing on four aspects: salient features of the owners and their businesses; general business practices; performance, and finally, perceptions about registration and reasons for remaining informal.

EURACTIV.com (19.01.2023) French train drivers, teachers and refinery workers were among those who walked off their jobs on Thursday (19 January) in a nationwide day of strikes against government plans to raise the retirement age by two years to 64.

theigc.org (09.01.2023) When natural disasters displace households, impacts on welfare can last for years after the event and vary depending on the extent of response. Between 2008 and 2018, around 265 million people were displaced by natural disasters around the world. While climate change threatens to increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters, studying the impacts of displacement is very difficult for two main reasons. First, natural disasters don’t strike randomly (some areas are more prone to disasters than other because of their geography among other factors), and people who are better off tend to avoid living in high-risk areas. Second, the very nature of displacement makes it difficult to collect data on all the people who were affected.

ceps.eu (10.01.2023) Should we make SURE a permanent instrument? To answer this, one might look at whether SURE – as a loans-based financial instrument – has been effectively taken up by Member States and used to support Job Retention (JR) schemes and other similar measures.

The Japan Times (09.01.2023) Low fertility rates — in the absence of increased immigration — will reduce the working-age population, in turn lowering household consumption and economic growth

ScienceDirect (2023) Social protection, as a vulnerability response tool, is well-placed to equip climate-vulnerable populations with resources that de-risk livelihoods and smooth consumption. This systematic literature review of 28 studies identifies evidence for how social protection has influenced beneficiaries’ migration decisions, experiences, and outcomes in the context of a changing climate, through cash transfers, public work programs, insurance, and health care.

koreatimes.co.kr (08.01.2023) The government will take drastic measures to tackle Korea's demographic crisis of its falling birthrate and rapidly aging society, said Na Kyung-won, head of the presidential committee on Aging Society and Population Policy, who floated the idea of writing off loans for married couples who give birth to children.

European Commission (03.01.2023) Principle 17 of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) emphasises the right of people with disabilities to “income support that ensures living in dignity” as well as “services that enable them to participate in the labour market and in society”. This Synthesis Report prepared by the European Social Policy Network (ESPN) describes and analyses the conditions under which persons with disabilities aged 18 years and above have effective access to social protection. It focuses on the provision of various disability-specific income support schemes, benefits for some risks other than disability, as well as selected support services for people with disabilities,

strathprints.strath.ac.uk (2022) In 2017 the Scottish Government passed the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act with the commitment to significantly reduce the relative child poverty rate from the current prevailing level of around 25% to 10% by 2030/31. In response, the government introduced the Scottish Child Payment (SCP) that provides a direct transfer to households at a fixed rate per eligible child – currently £25 per week. In this paper we explore, using a micro to macro modelling approach, the effectiveness of using the SCP to achieve the Scottish child poverty targets. While we find that the ambitious child poverty targets can technically be met solely using the SCP, the necessary payment of £165 per week amounting to a total government cost of £3 billion per year, makes the political and economy-wide barriers significant. A key issue with only using the SCP is the non-linearity in the response to the payment; as the payment increase the marginal gain in the reduction of child poverty decreases – this is particularly evident after payments of £80 per week. A ‘policy-mix’ option combining the SCP, targeted cash transfers and other policy levels (such as childcare provision) seems the most promising approach to reaching the child poverty targets.

La Tunisie est parvenue à un accord avec le Québec dans le domaine de la sécurité sociale, garantissant la couverture médicale et les pensions de vieillesse et d’invalidité au profit de la communauté tunisienne établie dans cette vile canadienne, a annoncé le ministère des Affaires sociales.