G8 Labour Ministers To Meet in Rome From 29 to 31 March
18/02/2009
The Labour Ministers’ Meeting will be the first international event devoted to the social and human aspects of the crisis that is putting the world’s major economies to the test. The meeting’s purpose will be to discuss and examine the measures that might be taken to cope with unemployment, with particular reference to household income support and bringing victims of the crisis back into the employment market.
Given the global nature of the crisis, and in line with the Italian G8 duty Presidency’s strategy, the Rome meeting will also be attended by the Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, Mexican, South African and Egyptian labour ministers. Several international organisations are also being involved: in addition to the European Union (with EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Vladmir Spidla) the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development - OECD and the International Monetary Fund – IMF; the United Nations, with the International Labour Organisation - ILO are also due to attend.
The Labour Ministers’ Meeting will thus provide a major opportunity for outlining both the measures that might be adopted by the individual states, and the internationally coordinated joint drives as well. Italian Labour Minister Maurizio Sacconi has stressed that the crisis facing the markets and the real economies calls for responses setting out chiefly to protect and develop people, not only to safeguard savings and encourage consumption and investment. This meant that policies ensuring those who lost their jobs of a subsistence income and helping them find new employment fast were needed. To that end, Sacconi explained, spending should be concentrated on investment in human resources with a view to increasing people’s skills. This was the prerequisite both for social inclusion and for economic growth.
The Labour Ministers’ Meeting is the second ministerial-level event scheduled in the approach to the G8 Summit on La Maddalena in July.
