More than 200 million children in the world today are involved in child labour, doing work that is damaging to his or her mental, physical and emotional development.
Decent work sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives. It involves opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men.
Economic and social development
A new social pillar is needed to support fairness in the emerging global economy. The world’s millennial challenge is to find ways to make the global economy work for the many, not the few.
• Development aid • Gender and development • Globalization • list all >
Unlocking the enormous potential of enterprises to create decent jobs can help alleviate poor working conditions and provide a route out of poverty.
• Cooperatives • Corporate citizenship • Informal economy • list all >
Employment structures are changing, as are working conditions. Underlying the observed changes are the twin pressures for flexibility and security and the search for new ways of balancing them.
Combating discrimination is an essential part of promoting decent work, and success on this front is felt well beyond the workplace.
• Gender equality • Indigenous and tribal peoples • Maternity protection • list all >
At least 12.3 million people around the world are trapped in forced labour. The ILO works to combat the practice and the conditions that give rise to it.
Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining
The right of workers and employers to form and join organizations of their own choosing is an integral part of a free and open society.
HIV/AIDS threatens the livelihoods of many workers and those who depend on them - families, communities and enterprises.
Individual sectors and industries
The ILO conducts research on specific economic sectors, and facilitates information exchange between its constituents on labour and social developments. Sectoral meetings are generally tripartite (equal participation by governments, employers and workers).
The ILO is committed to assisting member States in assessing and, where necessary, framing or revising their labour laws.
• Labour administration • Labour inspection
Half of all migrants (86 million adults) are economically active. The ILO seeks to ensure them decent work through multilateral actions and policies.
Millions of men and women around the world work in hazardous conditions. Each year, more than 2 million die of work-related accidents and diseases.
Skills, Knowledge and Employability
Skills and knowledge are engines of economic growth and social development, and crucial to sustaining productivity and income-earning opportunities.
• Disability and work • Lifelong learning • Training and vocational guidance
Only 20 per cent of the world’s population has adequate social security coverage and more than half lack any coverage at all. The ILO actively promotes policies and provides assistance to countries to help extend adequate levels of social protection to all members of society.
Workers and Employers organizations, tripartism and social dialogue
Through their organizations, workers and employers make tripartism and social dialogue a real life experience by applying them in practice.
• Employers organizations • Workers' organizations
Conditions of work and employment, including efforts to adapt working life to the demands of life outside work, are crucial aspects of decent work.
• Wages • list all >
Young women and men are two to three times more likely to be unemployed than adults. The ILO has a special role to play in promoting youth employment.
