A/HRC/53/33
I. Introduction
1.
The right to work is a human right. Article 6 of the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides that, “to achieve the full realization of this
right”, States parties should take steps to achieve “full and productive employment under
conditions safeguarding fundamental political and economic freedoms to the individual”.
This replicates the language of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Employment
Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122), which imposes on States a duty to adopt an active policy
designed to promote full, productive and freely chosen employment (art. 1). The Sustainable
Development Goals also include a goal to ensure full and productive employment and decent
work for all (Goal 8).
2.
These formulations suggest that States have an obligation of means: essentially, to do
what they can to create jobs. This report explores whether this could become more than a
policy objective: an enforceable right, imposing on Governments an obligation of result – to
provide decent work to all individuals able and willing to work. This is the idea of a job
guarantee.
3.
The idea is not new. In the United States, the Works Progress Administration was part
of the New Deal response to the depression of the 1930s. Public employment schemes have
been a common response to structural unemployment in member countries of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), though with less use in
recent decades. 1 They have also been a widely used strategy in low- and middle-income
countries,2 often as a short-term reaction to mass unemployment. Among the most famous
examples are the Productive Safety Net Programme in Ethiopia, which covered about 10 per
cent of the population in 2018;3 the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee
Act in India, with 76 million beneficiary households in the financial year 2020/21; 4 or the
Expanded Public Works Programme in South Africa, which created a million job
opportunities in 2021/22. 5 Although such schemes have often prioritized infrastructure
creation, such as roads, dams or wells, public employment programmes in the sectors of care,
education and culture have now become more common: these are labour intensive and
therefore allow maximum employment creation within limited budgets and dedicate a larger
portion of the budget to wages. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic revived
interest in these schemes, as a means to buffer the employment impacts of the crisis: examples
range from infrastructure in Kazakhstan to education and care in South Africa and tree
planting in Nigeria.6
II. The paradox of too few jobs and unfulfilled societal needs
4.
The job guarantee is an answer to a paradox. On the one hand, many people are jobless
or can only work part-time. Globally, 473 million people are seeking employment.7 Official
unemployment rates do not include all those who have abandoned the search for employment
as a result of a lack of opportunities or because, for instance, due to insufficient provision of
childcare or support for dependent persons, they cannot reconcile paid work outside the home
with often unpaid work within the household. In the European Union and in the United States
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2
Melvin Brodsky, “Public-service employment programs in selected OECD countries”, Monthly Labor
Review (October 2000).
Anna McCord, “Public works and social protection in sub-Saharan Africa: do public works work for
the poor?” (Tokyo, United Nations University Press, 2013).
Esther Gehrke and Renate Hartwig, “Productive effects of public works programs: what do we know?
What should we know?“, World Development, vol. 107 (2018), pp. 111–124, table A.1.
Swati Narayan, “Fifteen years of India’s NREGA: employer of the last resort?”, Indian Journal of
Labour Economics, vol. 65 (2022), pp. 779–799, at p. 780.
Government of South Africa, “Public works and infrastructure on work opportunities created by
expanded public works programme”, 15 June 2022.
ILO, Public Employment Initiatives and the COVID-19 Crisis. A Compendium of Infrastructure
Stimulus, Public Employment Programs (PEP), Public Works Programs Case Studies (Geneva,
2021).
ILO, World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2023 (Geneva, 2023), p. 138, appendix C.
GE.23-06355