European Parliament (17.01.2024) Although a provisional political agreement between the Council and Parliament was announced on 13 December 2023, 10 Member States could not endorse this agreement on 22 December 2023. The Belgian Presidency is seeking to revive informal discussions with the European Parliament so as to set a date for new negotiations. Platform work is an umbrella concept covering a heterogeneous group of economic activities completed through a digital platform. Platform workers' rights are not enshrined in EU labour law and this is increasingly leading to problems relating to various aspects of their work and human development. To remedy this situation, the European Commission submitted a proposal for a directive aimed at improving the working conditions of platform workers, clarifying their employment status, and establishing the first EU rules for the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace. The European Parliament had adopted its negotiating mandate on the file on 2 February 2023; while the Council agreed its general approach on 12 June 2023. Fourth edition of a briefing originally drafted by Monika Kiss. The 'EU Legislation in Progress' briefings are updated at key stages throughout the legislative procedure.

oecd (07.02.2024) Digital technologies are having a profound impact on economies, labour markets and societies. They also have the potential to transform government, by enabling the implementation of more accessible and effective services. To support a shift towards digital government, investment is needed in developing the skills of civil servants. This paper reviews good practices across OECD countries to foster skills for digital government. It presents different approaches in public administration to organising training activities as well as opportunities for informal learning. It also provides insights into how relevant skills can be identified through competence frameworks, how they can be assessed, and how learning opportunities can be evaluated.

theconversation.com (21.01.2024) Young people – under the age of 15 – currently make up 29% of South Africa’s population. But this will soon change: the aged portion of the population is forecast to rise from 2030, bringing many challenges. Lauren Johnston, an economics and political economy expert, recently published a paper on the subject. We asked her to put the developments into perspective.

Development Pathways (February 2024) Challenging the misconception that universal social security is only viable in high-income countries, this paper compiles examples of ongoing universal coverage schemes in low- and middle-income nations, focusing on old age, disability, and child benefits. With sufficient political backing, these countries have gradually introduced one or multiple universal schemes, constructing comprehensive, affordable, and sustainable lifecycle social security systems over time. The universal schemes included are initiatives largely designed, implemented, and financed by national governments, dispelling affordability myths and emphasising the transformative potential of self-sufficient, nationwide social security initiatives.

lefigaro.fr (06.02.2024) Après l'Assemblée nationale en novembre, la proposition de loi portant sur une panoplie de mesures pour «bâtir la société du bien-vieillir en France» est bien partie pour être adoptée très largement par les sénateurs

worldbank.org (29.01.2024) In early 2020, Cameroon had a well-established safety net. The Social Safety Net Project had reached almost 10% of the poor (140,000 households) with either cash transfers or, mainly for youth, temporary employment through public works. More broadly, the project had put in place robust systems to identify beneficiaries, monitor implementation, and handle complaints. While it had recently expanded support to refugees, it remained focused on addressing chronic poverty rather than responding to crises. The COVID-19 pandemic provided the impetus for change. To mitigate adverse economic effects, the government launched an emergency cash transfer program in urban areas. The goal was to provide income support to 80,000 informal sector workers affected by social distancing restrictions. Yet, it soon became apparent that more agile mechanisms were needed to distribute the aid timely and safely. The government decided that, for the first time, the transfers would be made digitally into beneficiaries’ mobile money accounts rather than in cash. 

ilo.org (01.02.2024) A new Law and Practice report, Realizing Decent Work in the Platform Economy , has been published by the ILO. The report marks a crucial milestone in the process that can lead to a new international labour standard on decent work in the platform economy. It will be discussed at the 2025 and 2026 International Labour Conferences.

World Economic Forum (09.01.2024) This insight report provides a blueprint for the Digital Healthcare Transformation Initiative, detailing healthcare challenges that digital solutions can tackle, key enablers for adoption, success stories and strategies to expedite digital healthcare transformation.

India Today (29.01.2024) The proposed fund, outlined in the Social Security Code of 2020, represents a significant move towards providing universal social security for a wide range of workers.

Governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations, international organizations, academic institutions and INGOs join Coalition to grow multilateral cooperation, and accelerate progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals and Decent Work Agenda.

oecd (23.01.2024) Health systems are under intense pressure to adapt to evolving needs and megatrends driven by population ageing, digitalisation, and climate change. They also need to be better prepared to withstand sudden, large-scale shocks such as pandemics, financial crises, natural disasters, or cyberattacks. This shifting policy context and emerging challenges called for a revision in how OECD countries assess health system performance, to help ensure that health systems meet people’s health needs and preferences while providing quality healthcare for all. This document presents the OECD’s renewed health system performance assessment framework. It incorporates new performance dimensions, notably people-centredness, resilience, and environmental sustainability, and places increased emphasis on addressing inequalities, including those related to gender. This framework expands on existing OECD efforts in these domains and integrates the most recent advancements in health system performance assessment. By offering common definitions and fostering a shared understanding among policy makers, stakeholders and organisations, the updated framework will enhance international collaboration. Furthermore, it lays the foundation for developing future indicators, facilitating data collection, policy analysis, and the integration of knowledge.

ilo.org (06.10.2023) This study aims to understand the experiences of setting up global funds across the health, climate and agriculture sectors and identify lessons to be learned from them that can guide further thinking about the implementation of a prospective global fund for social protection.

ilo.org (28.11.2023) Challenges of extending social protection to migrant workers are particularly evident in the countries of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC), where migrants comprise between 76 per cent (Saudi Arabia) and 95 per cent (Qatar) of the workforce. Such a large share implies a need to better understand the current state of social protection coverage for migrant workers, and the factors that determine the level of coverage afforded to them. This report explores the de jure (according to the law) and the de facto (actual) access of migrant workers to nine areas of social protection across the GCC countries, and the factors that have facilitated or hindered the extension of such coverage. The report is the first of its kind to assess this topic in a structured and systematic manner, and includes a review of the relevant literature in both English and Arabic, a review of applicable legislation and regulations by country, and an analysis of 51 key informant interviews.

worldbank.org (02.01.2024) The Sahel region of Africa faces multiple crises, which further compound structural economic and human development challenges. The Sahel is one of the world’s poorest regions and displays some of the lowest levels of human capital globally. Violence and insecurity in the Sahel have significantly increased in the past decade, with several countries experiencing active armed conflict and unrest. The impacts of climate change compound existing vulnerabilities and risks. Finally, the external shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have impacted the Sahel, eroding purchasing power and aggravating poverty. Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) plays a critical role in preventing or mitigating the negative impacts of shocks and boosting resilience for long-term development. ASP has emerged as a flexible and dynamic approach to social protection during the past decade. It combines and exploits synergies between social protection, disaster risk management (DRM), and climate change adaptation. Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) plays a critical role in preventing or mitigating the negative impacts of shocks and boosting resilience for long-term development. The Sahel’s vulnerability and exposure to shocks and crises is set to increase with accelerating climate change, calling for a shift from often externally funded, ad hoc responses toward building sustainable, government-led system. Over the past decade, ASP has been on a remarkable trajectory in the Sahel, and this is an appropriate time to take stock of the situation. This report provides an overview of the state of ASP across six Sahelian countries - Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal - as well as a set of recommendations for actions to strengthen the adaptiveness and responsiveness of existing systems to shocks.

World Economic Forum (17.01.2024) A new analysis from the World Economic Forum and the McKinsey Health Institute shows how improving women's health can significantly boost GDP. Enhancing women’s health benefits individual women and helps families, communities, organizations and the global economy. In recognition of the importance of addressing the gender health gap, the World Economic Forum is launching the Global Alliance for Women's Health.

imf.org(14.01.2024)  Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to reshape the global economy, especially in the realm of labor markets. Advanced economies will experience the benefits and pitfalls of AI sooner than emerging market and developing economies, largely due to their employment structure focused on cognitive-intensive roles. There are some consistent patterns concerning AI exposure, with women and college-educated individuals more exposed but also better poised to reap AI benefits, and older workers potentially less able to adapt to the new technology. Labor income inequality may increase if the complementarity between AI and high-income workers is strong, while capital returns will increase wealth inequality. However, if productivity gains are sufficiently large, income levels could surge for most workers. In this evolving landscape, advanced economies and more developed emerging markets need to focus on upgrading regulatory frameworks and supporting labor reallocation, while safeguarding those adversely affected. Emerging market and developing economies should prioritize developing digital infrastructure and digital skills

imf.org (14.01.2024) AI will affect almost 40 percent of jobs around the world, replacing some and complementing others. We need a careful balance of policies to tap its potential.

In a new analysis, IMF staff examine the potential impact of AI on the global labor market. Many studies have predicted the likelihood that jobs will be replaced by AI. Yet we know that in many cases AI is likely to complement human work. The IMF analysis captures both these forces.

The findings are striking: almost 40 percent of global employment is exposed to AI. Historically, automation and information technology have tended to affect routine tasks, but one of the things that sets AI apart is its ability to impact high-skilled jobs. As a result, advanced economies face greater risks from AI—but also more opportunities to leverage its benefits—compared with emerging market and developing economies.

OECD (11.01.2024) Finding sufficient funds to pay for more resilient health systems is challenging in the current economic context. COVID-19 has shown the need for additional targeted spending on public health interventions, the digital transformation of health systems, and bolstering the health workforce. Rising incomes, technological innovation and changing demographics put further upward pressure on health spending. This could result in health spending reaching 11.8% of GDP across OECD counties by 2040. This publication explores the policy options to finance more resilient health systems whilst maintaining fiscal sustainability. It finds that the scale of the additional health financing needs requires ambitious and transformative policy changes. Robust actions to encourage healthier populations and policies to reduce ineffective spending can put future health expenditure on a far gentler upward trajectory. These would enable spending to reach a more sustainable 10.6% of GDP in 2040. Better budgetary governance is critical. It improves how public funds for health are determined, executed and evaluated. Therefore, a focus of this report is on how good budgeting practices can increase the efficiency of current public spending, and also enable more ambitious policy changes in the medium to longer-term. Findings of this report are targeted at health and finance policy makers, with improved dialogue between health and finance ministries especially important when governments are operating in a constrained fiscal setting.

Euractiv (12.01.2024) Last month, a coalition of EU countries blocked the provisional agreement on the Platform Workers Directive. But while the Belgian EU Council presidency wants to use the political deal as the starting point for future discussion, Paris wants a more comprehensive file reshaping.

ESCAP (14.12.2023) The report compiles existing policy tools and and good practices adopted by Governments in Asia and the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean on formalizing informal employment in the formal sector. To provide a framework for understanding the full range of good practices on formalizing the employment of informal workers in the formal sector, the report sets out the integrated strategic policy approach outlined by ILO Recommendation No. 204 on facilitating the transition to formality. The report was prepared in the context of the project, Policymaking for More Inclusive and Sustainable Economies in Asia and the Pacific and in Latin America, implemented by ESCAP, in partnership with the Government of Colombia through the Agencia Presidencial de Cooperación Internacional de Colombia (APC Colombia).

Reuters (08.01.2024) The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden will release a final rule as soon as this week that will make it more difficult for companies to treat workers as independent contractors rather than employees that typically cost a company more, an administration official said. The U.S. Department of Labor rule, which was first proposed in 2022 and is likely to face legal challenges, will require that workers be considered employees entitled to more benefits and legal protections than contractors when they are "economically dependent" on a company.

STANOVNIŠTVO, 2023, 61(2) In most European Union (EU) Member States, self-employed individuals receive, on average, lower retirement pensions than employees. Furthermore, the number of self-employed pensioners is lower, and there is a significant proportion of self-employed workers in the EU who are not entitled to a retirement pension. The situation is even more delicate for the new self-employed, as their mode of labour market participation, career trajectory, and the income level they reach can potentially compromise their future pension prospects. This paper analyses the position of self-employed workers within national social security systems, with a particular focus on their methods of contribution and the consequential impact on their ability to access adequate retirement pensions as a form of replacement income, thus avoiding the risk of poverty and ensuring a decent standard of living in old age. In this area, the Member States and the EU interact within the framework of their respective competences, with the manifest aim of improving the social protection of self-employed workers in their senior years.

South China Morning Post (03.01.2024) Questions for people aged 60 and above were added to a survey on population changes and the labour force, including their ability to use a smartphone. A demographer urged China, one of the world’s fastest ageing countries, to ‘build a digitally inclusive society’, while firms were asked to produce age-friendly products

worldbank.org (14.12.2023) The rise of “gig” or digital platform work globally has led to both enthusiasm for its potential to create lucrative employment for large numbers of people, as well as concern about its implications for worker protection that is often provided in more standard employment. While gig work platforms may not be akin to employers in standard work relationships, arrangements that do not obligate them to provide worker protection and social insurance contributions may leave several platform workers unprotected against a range of risks. Is the observed lack of protection among digital platform workers explained by an unwillingness on part of the workers themselves to make necessary contributions for social insurance coverage? This paper analyzes this question in the context of Malaysia, a rapidly growing upper-middle-income East Asian economy that has witnessed a rise in gig work in recent years. The paper deploys a novel vignette-based experiment to ascertain gig workers’ willingness to pay for social insurance coverage. The analysis finds overall a large unmet need for social insurance among gig workers, as well as a high level of willingness to pay for (especially) unemployment insurance, retirement savings, and accidental and injury insurance. This implies that the policy challenge is to channel such willingness into regular contributions for social insurance coverage through relevant and flexible options for contributions.

ILO Working paper 101 (20.12.2023) This paper seeks to explore the key emerging regulatory dimensions of platform work. It contextualizes the challenges associated with platform work as an expression of the consolidated features that, in the past decades, have been transforming the labour market: non-standardization and the deregulation of employment relationships.