ILO Report
Key indicators of the labour market. 5th Edition, Geneva, 2007

An important role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) is to identify global employment challenges where economic growth and decent work opportunities are most needed around the world. The Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM) highlights global trends relating to the world of work using world and regional estimates and country-level data of labour force participation, employment, employment by sector, employment by status, unemployment, youth unemployment, employment elasticities and working poverty.

Defining effective labour market strategies at the country level requires first and foremost the collection, dissemination and assessment of the up-to-date and reliable labour market information. Once a strategy is decided, continuing information and analysis are essential to monitor progress towards goals and to adjust policies where needed. Labour market information and analysis must be viewed as the cornerstone for developing integrated strategies to promote standards and fundamental principles and rights at work, productive employment, social protection and dialogue, as well as to address the cross-cutting themes of gender and development – this is where the KILM comes in.

In 1999 the ILO launched the KILM programme to improve the dissemination of information and analysis relating to key elements of the world’s labour markets. The KILM is designed with two primary objectives in mind: (1) to present a core set of labour market indicators and analysis; and (2) to improve the availability of the indicators to monitor new employment trends. The KILM aims to meet these objectives by disseminating 20 “key” indicators of the labour market associated with the decent work initiative (listed in box 1): employment and variables relating to employment (status, sector, hours, etc.), the lack of work and the characteristics of jobseekers, education, wages and compensation costs, labour productivity and working poor. Taken together, the KILM indicators give a strong foundation from which to begin addressing key questions related to labour underutilization and decent work deficits.

In addition to presenting indicators for assessing labour market conditions, the KILM 5th Edition attempts to expand the knowledge base on the relationships between poverty, decent work deficits and labour underutilization through the use of these indicators.

The KILM 5th Edition

The first chapter of the KILM 5th Edition is dedicated to a more in-depth analysis of certain indicators with an emphasis on showing how the indicators can highlight vital issues that are associated with economic outcomes and provide recommendations. The “key issues” chapter of this edition contains three topics that have a recurring theme: the need to assess progress made towards full, decent and productive employment objectives – and thus reductions in labour underutilization – using a comprehensive set of indicators. The topics are: (1) “Decent employment and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) : Description and analysis of a new target”; (2) “Assessing vulnerable employment: The role of status and sector indicators”; and, (3) “Beyond the employment/unemployment dichotomy: Measuring the quality of employment in low income countries”.

The first topic on decent employment and the MDGs discusses the new target for MDG 1, which emphasizes the importance of full, decent and productive employment as the key element for poverty reduction. A set of four initial indicators was selected to assess progress made towards this target: employment-to-population ratios (KILM 2), vulnerable employment (identified using status in employment in KILM 3), working poverty (KILM 20) and labour productivity (KILM 18). Regional trends for these four indicators are examined to verify which regions are on track towards achieving decent work objectives in the context of MDG 1. Even though users are discouraged from singling out any one indicator, taken together the four indicators provide an initial starting point for assessing labour underutilization and decent work deficits.

The second topic highlights the possibility of identifying vulnerable groups in the labour market using employment by status (KILM 3) in conjunction with other indicators and, in particular, employment by sector (KILM 4). Employed persons are identified as ‘vulnerable’ if they risk working under inadequate conditions – that is, if they are more at risk of lacking full, decent and productive employment. Given pervasive labour underutilization in developing countries, large segments of the employed are vulnerable, and the challenge is to identify these segments using standardized statistics that are readily available and can be generated by national statistical agencies.

The last topic on the employment/unemployment dichotomy reflects some of the limitations of current indicators on job quality. The purpose is to evoke thought and discourse on how to better empirically capture the concept of job quality so as to inform employment policies, particularly for developing countries. In the meantime, this section supports two conclusions. First, in the absence of an all inclusive indicator, current indicators, despite their limitations, should be used to complement each other in an effort to provide a more detailed picture of job quality in developing countries. The KILM indicators discussed include employment-to-population ratios (KILM 2), status in employment (KILM 3), hours of work (KILM 6), employment in the informal economy (KILM 7), time-related underemployment (KILM 12) and working poverty (KILM 20). Many of these indicators are indeed used to analyse decent work deficits, particularly with the introduction of the new MDG target as discussed above. Second, qualitative indicators, while posing greater difficulty of measurement, serve as the only means by which to approximate the extent of inadequate employment and are, therefore, necessary to complement an analysis of labour markets in developing countries.

Complete document : http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/strat/kilm/index.htm

 

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