Frequently Asked Questions

The ILO's Decent Work Agenda emphasizes that job creation and job quality should go hand in hand. Creating jobs without ensuring their quality can lead to issues such as working poverty, exploitation, and unsafe working conditions. Decent work, which includes fair wages, safe working conditions, and social protection, is essential for sustainable economic growth and social stability. By focusing on both job creation and job quality simultaneously, we can ensure that economic growth is inclusive and benefits all members of society

Yes, it is realistic for low-income countries to develop decent jobs. The ILO's Decent Work Agenda provides a framework that supports this goal through policies that promote job creation, rights at work, social protection, and social dialogue. Investing in decent work can lead to more robust and inclusive economic growth, which in turn creates a virtuous cycle of development. Examples from various developing countries show that with the right policies and international support, it is possible to create decent jobs that lift people out of poverty and contribute to sustainable development.

Decent work is built on four strategic pillars:

1. Employment Creation

This pillar focuses on ensuring that everyone has access to job opportunities, even in contexts of high unemployment. It involves stimulating an environment conducive to investment, entrepreneurship, and skill development. Job creation supports sustainable livelihoods and enhances employment prospects.

2. Rights at Work

This pillar ensures that workers can enjoy the benefits of decent work, such as fair wages, benefits, and compensation for illness or injury. It also protects workers from exploitation, such as long working hours or unpaid overtime, and other forms of abuse.

3. Social Protection

Social protection safeguards workers' well-being by ensuring workplaces are safe and conducive to health. It provides access to essential benefits such as healthcare coverage, pensions for retirement security, and parental leave to support work-life balance. These measures contribute to the overall welfare and productivity of workers.

4. Social Dialogue

Social dialogue encourages workers to engage in decision-making processes through unions, promoting effective communication between employers, employees, and government authorities. This dialogue helps establish fair workplace policies and advocate for broader labour rights, influencing both local and global labour standards and development policies.

While the core principles of decent work—such as fair wages, safe working conditions, and social protection—are universal, the specific definition and implementation can vary by sector and country. Different sectors have unique challenges and requirements, and countries have different economic, social, and cultural contexts. Therefore, the approach to achieving decent work must be tailored to fit these specific circumstances. The ILO's framework allows for flexibility in addressing these differences while maintaining the overarching goal of promoting decent work for all.

Implementing the Decent Work Agenda faces several significant challenges. Economic constraints, such as limited financial resources in low-income countries, hinder investments in job creation, social protection, and labour rights enforcement. Economic instability, including downturns and financial crises, can lead to job losses and reduced investment in decent work initiatives. Additionally, a large portion of the workforce in many countries is employed in the informal sector, where labour standards are often not enforced, and workers lack social protection. This lack of regulation makes it difficult to ensure decent working conditions. Social and political factors, such as political instability and corruption, further undermine efforts to implement decent work policies and programmes.

Labour market challenges also pose significant obstacles. High levels of unemployment and underemployment, particularly among youth, make it difficult to provide decent work for all. There is often a mismatch between the skills of the workforce and the needs of the labour market, hindering job creation and economic growth. Globalisation and technological change add to these challenges, with increased global competition potentially leading to lower labour standards and technological advancements causing job displacement. Ensuring safe and healthy working conditions remains a significant issue, especially in high-risk sectors, due to weak enforcement of occupational safety and health standards. Furthermore, weak labour institutions and limited participation in social dialogue processes make it challenging to advocate for workers' rights and ensure broad and inclusive participation

Creating decent work involves the collaboration of several key stakeholders, each playing a crucial role in promoting and implementing the Decent Work Agenda. These stakeholders include:

Creating decent work involves the collaboration of several key stakeholders, each playing a crucial role in promoting and implementing the Decent Work Agenda. These stakeholders include:

1. Public Actors

• Governments and National Authorities: They are responsible for adopting and implementing labour rights and social protection mechanisms, such as healthcare. Governments ratify ILO conventions, adopt national labour legislation, govern the labour market, and develop decent work plans in consultation with private and social actors.

2. Private Actors

• Employers' Organisations: These organisations represent the collective interests of enterprises, manufacturers, retailers, and other employers of wage labour. They advocate for their members in the labour market through social dialogue with governments and workers' organisations.

3. Social Actors

• Labour or Trade Unions: These unions represent workers and are responsible for defending their rights, improving pay, benefits, and working conditions through advocacy, collective bargaining, and social dialogue with governments and employers' organisations. They also participate in the co-determination of social and economic policies in various tripartite bodies.

4. Civil Society Organisations

• Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Community Groups: These organisations often advocate for the rights of specific groups, such as women, youth, and marginalized communities. They play a role in raising awareness, providing support, and ensuring that the voices of vulnerable groups are heard in the dialogue on decent work.

5. International Organisations

• International Labour Organization (ILO): The ILO provides a framework for promoting decent work globally. It supports governments, employers, and workers' organisations in implementing the Decent Work Agenda through technical assistance, research, and policy guidance.

6. Businesses and Enterprises

• Companies and Employers: They are directly responsible for implementing decent work practices within their organisations. This includes ensuring fair wages, safe working conditions, and social protection for their employees.

7. Workers and Employees

• Individual Workers: They play a role by participating in unions, advocating for their rights, and engaging in social dialogue to improve their working conditions.

Decent work remains a challenge for development practitioners who aim to strengthen the capacity of enterprises, worker organisations and governmental institutions to improve jobs and conditions for workers. Particularly, contexts which are characterised by low income, high informality, or workers who face difficult and dangerous working conditions, pose challenges. This platform is designed to provide insights and practical guidance with focus, namely, on challenges related to fragile context, NEETS and informal economy. Depending on your learning needs, you can discover this platform via one of the three routes below: get inspired, get into practice and get trained. 

Programs aimed at promoting decent work employ a variety of activities targeting different groups and stakeholders, each with distinct objectives. As a result, measuring the success and progress of these activities should align with their specific goals. When a program is based on an analysis of decent work deficits, monitoring should track the extent to which these deficits are being addressed. Achieving decent work is a gradual process, and depending on the program's focus, you may need either a comprehensive, multi-dimensional approach to measurement or more focused tools. The choice of measurement approach and tools is thus highly dependent on the specific program. The Decent Work Toolbox provides guidance on selecting the most appropriate tools for different contexts, ensuring effective monitoring and evaluation.
Read more about measuring and monitoring of decent work in the guidelines section on this DW Toolbox.