The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has reviewed significant decisions relating to living wages and initiatives to strengthen social justice.

This was part of the closing at the 350th session of the Governing Body in March at the ILO headquarters in Geneva, where decisions were also taken on specific country cases.

The council in its February 2024 report outlined the central role of decent wages in economic and social development and the advancement of social justice.

It denoted that the concept of a living wage is, “the wage level that is necessary to afford a decent standard of living for workers and their families, considering the country’s circumstances and calculated for the work performed during the normal hours of work.

The body said it is “calculated by the ILO’s principles of estimating the living wage and it is to be achieved through the wage-setting process in line with ILO principles on wage setting.”

ILO Director-General, Gilbert Houngbo, said the governing body’s decision to publish the meeting’s conclusions opens the way for new ILO work on the estimation and operationalisation of living wages, technical assistance, awareness-raising and promotional activities related to living wages.

In a high-level section, members joined prominent experts from the private sector, academia and the multilateral system to discuss the work-related challenges and opportunities created by digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

They deliberated how the innovations could help to support and promote decent work, as well as the importance of ensuring a human-centred approach to the use of technology.

In his closing remarks, the Director-General highlighted the ILO’s important role as a global thought leader on AI’s labour market impact and best practices related to AI and digitalisation in the world of work.

Meanwhile, as the world faces a number of complex challenges, the ILO recently examined key labour indicators to assess the impact of unprecedented crises in order to shed light on global trends and regional variations and their impact on the ability to realise the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

The chart showed that despite an overall decline in global working poverty, regional disparities persisted in 2023.

For instance, it highlighted that the Arab States grappled with post-pandemic challenges while the other regions celebrated reductions in working poverty rates.

The chart showed that Africa remained with the highest share of working poor, at 29.0 per cent, while sub-Saharan Africa alone had 145 million people in extreme working poverty – almost a third of their employed population.

The global body stated that with the ongoing poly-crisis, working poverty and informal employment – both deeply intertwined – are expected to persist.

It said that achieving the 2030 agenda remains in the distant future, particularly in regions that lack the fiscal capacity to cope with economic stresses.

According to the global organisation, despite the initial signs of recovery in 2021 following the pandemic-induced labour market disruption, challenging economic conditions are nudging workers toward informal employment.

Yet, it stated that these jobs lack critical elements of formal employment relationships, notably access to social protection systems, posing a barrier to advancing social justice.

It said globally, more than two billion workers found themselves in informal employment in 2023, making up 58.0 per cent of the global workforce.

This rate, it said, is projected to decrease only slightly to 57.8 per cent in 2024.

According to it, the decline of the informality rate by less than a percentage point since 2015 is far too slow for widespread formalisation to be expected any time soon.

Although, while the global informality rate is at its lowest, it added that the number of informal workers is at its highest.