Vatican urges U.N. to focus on job creation to boost global economy
14 June, 2013 - Job creation must become a key component of any United Nations plan
to lift people out of poverty around the world, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer
to the United Nations in Geneva told the International Labor Conference. Speaking
during a conference session on Wednesday, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said that 45 million
to 50 million jobs will be needed annually over the next decade to keep up with the
growth in the world's working-age population. "Experience shows that work is the
way out of poverty for poor households and that the expansion of productive and decent
employment is the way economies grow and diversify," the archbishop said. "For countries
at all levels of development, an adequate supply of jobs is the foundation of sustained
and growing prosperity, inclusion and social cohesion." Citing the creation of jobs
that has led to the lessening of poverty in numerous Latin American and Asian nations,
Archbishop Tomasi urged conference participants to take steps to encourage diversification
of economies, inclusive access to finance and employment-friendly macroeconomic policies
to foster investment and consumption. Archbishop Tomasi called for the development
of employment policies that benefit both worker and business. Archbishop Tomasi also
stressed the people must be seen as more than consumer, but as integral members of
society whose dignity can be upheld through employment. "The worldwide financial and
economic crisis has highlighted a grave deficiency in the human perspective, thus
reducing man to only one of his needs, namely that of consumption. Worse yet, nowadays,
human beings themselves are considered as consumer goods which can be thrown away,"
the archbishop told conference delegates. "All too often policies are aimed at addressing
the needs of businesses without considering the needs of workers, and vice versa.
We must promote the conditions for a recovery built on substantial job creation in
order to establish a new social pact that puts the person and work at the center of
the economy." At the end of 2012, five years since the beginning of the global
financial crisis, nearly 200 million people remained jobless, he said. Even with modest
job growth forecast for 2013 and 2014, he said, large numbers of people will remain
unemployed. The archbishop lamented the high level of youth unemployment, which stood
as high as 50 percent in some nations, saying it a cause for the U.N. to act. He suggested
the policies be put in place to address conflict across generations as older workers
hold onto jobs longer even as young people are unable to find work. Rebuilding links
between education and work also must be addressed so that schools provide young people
with the skills necessary to obtain work, he added. (Source: CNS)