Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LABOUR (Tackling informal employment in Asia: building post-COV19 solutions to precariousness through case-study based evidence on Bhutan, Laos, Maldives, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam)
Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-12-31
LABOUR is a research and training programme designed to address the above-mentioned shortfalls of research and development approaches with particular attention to a region where this is particularly worrying concern. We have gathered a team of 16 participants that includes academic and non-academic partners working on labour insecurity with the goal of offering
1) A comprehensive training component allowing participants to gain a specialisation in a new field, sector and discipline(s); this will be used as a base to
2) Explore the nexus between potentially inadequate or ineffective state responses to the rise of job insecurity from a two-fold perspective.
This will help addressing, both at the scientific and policy level, the challenges of precarious labour in the region, with particular attention to the post-pandemic crisis that hit Southeast Asia. According to the last WESO report, there are over 1.4bn workers in vulnerable jobs worldwide, with numbers sharply increased by the COVID-19 pandemic. Informal employment in Asia is estimated to account for 68.2% of the active population and several attempts have been made at both domestic and international levels to address these concerns. This includes efforts through the Sustainable Development Goals process, which includes a specific statistical indicator to measure informal employment (8.3.1) the formulation of SDG8 (decent work) and SDG9 (sustainable industrialization).
Across countries and world regions, the degree to which SDGs have been used to address youth issues and inform national policies varies significantly. Indeed, in spite of the fact that the great majority of states have formally committed to addressing the SDGs, including those related to insecure employment, there is little evidence to indicate that developing regions currently have the capacity to systematically study the problems if informal employment and vulnerability in ways that facilitate the development and implementation of concrete viable solutions. This is due, in our view, to two major challenges. First, although a number of approaches that have been used inside the EU, there has been little, if any, attempt to adapt the existing framework elsewhere. Second, no systematic review of anti-precariousness policy has been attempted beyond the EU region. With this project, we aim not only at producing specialists on the topic and on the region but also at proposing concrete mitigation measures that can be taken into account by decision-makers and development organisations.
1) A comprehensive training component allowing participants to gain a specialisation in a new field, sector and discipline(s); this will be used as a base to
2) Explore the nexus between potentially inadequate or ineffective state responses to the rise of job insecurity from a two-fold perspective.
This will help addressing, both at the scientific and policy level, the challenges of precarious labour in the region, with particular attention to the post-pandemic crisis that hit Southeast Asia. According to the last WESO report, there are over 1.4bn workers in vulnerable jobs worldwide, with numbers sharply increased by the COVID-19 pandemic. Informal employment in Asia is estimated to account for 68.2% of the active population and several attempts have been made at both domestic and international levels to address these concerns. This includes efforts through the Sustainable Development Goals process, which includes a specific statistical indicator to measure informal employment (8.3.1) the formulation of SDG8 (decent work) and SDG9 (sustainable industrialization).
Across countries and world regions, the degree to which SDGs have been used to address youth issues and inform national policies varies significantly. Indeed, in spite of the fact that the great majority of states have formally committed to addressing the SDGs, including those related to insecure employment, there is little evidence to indicate that developing regions currently have the capacity to systematically study the problems if informal employment and vulnerability in ways that facilitate the development and implementation of concrete viable solutions. This is due, in our view, to two major challenges. First, although a number of approaches that have been used inside the EU, there has been little, if any, attempt to adapt the existing framework elsewhere. Second, no systematic review of anti-precariousness policy has been attempted beyond the EU region. With this project, we aim not only at producing specialists on the topic and on the region but also at proposing concrete mitigation measures that can be taken into account by decision-makers and development organisations.
Even if several times delayed because of the pandemic, the work of the project LABOUR slowly started in January 2021 and continued throughout the year. Pandemic restrictions impacted the project in that secondments, and therefore research, was not evenly possible throughout the network. Besides, the recent military coup in Myanmar made it difficult, say impossible, to second staff to the country. As a remedy, we added another partner (KYSD Cambodia) that is equally competent and guaranteed completion of the planned secondments on time.
The first phase of the project concentrated on secondment of fellows from Asian to EU countries. This came not only out of necessity, to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, but also well in consistency with the workflow. Indeed, these research stays allowed staff from non-academic partner to undergo academic training and therefore contribute more actively to the research and training components of the project.
The team also started its visibility activities with a panel at the IPSO Peace Conference in Kyoto, where members of several partners (GIVE, KYSD, PAKISAMA, TLU) contributed to the discussion.
Starting from end 2021, the situation became normalised and secondments were possible in all directions, allowing a greater number of fellows to be seconded. At the time of this report, more than half of the months have been used by researchers both from Asia and Europe, who engaged in research on precarious labour in a variety of settings and frameworks. This resulted in several innovative deliverables that are listed in the communication and dissemination section below. Overall, the project was responsible for a seminar series, a workshop series and a wide range of academic and non academic publications as well as conference panels. In addition, several network events were held as documented below and the Mid-Term Review was also coordinated with a management, exploitation and dissemination event that included presentation of research findings and a panel discussion on business in Asia featuring several experts and the Thai ambassador to Turkey, who formally endorsed the event.
The first phase of the project concentrated on secondment of fellows from Asian to EU countries. This came not only out of necessity, to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, but also well in consistency with the workflow. Indeed, these research stays allowed staff from non-academic partner to undergo academic training and therefore contribute more actively to the research and training components of the project.
The team also started its visibility activities with a panel at the IPSO Peace Conference in Kyoto, where members of several partners (GIVE, KYSD, PAKISAMA, TLU) contributed to the discussion.
Starting from end 2021, the situation became normalised and secondments were possible in all directions, allowing a greater number of fellows to be seconded. At the time of this report, more than half of the months have been used by researchers both from Asia and Europe, who engaged in research on precarious labour in a variety of settings and frameworks. This resulted in several innovative deliverables that are listed in the communication and dissemination section below. Overall, the project was responsible for a seminar series, a workshop series and a wide range of academic and non academic publications as well as conference panels. In addition, several network events were held as documented below and the Mid-Term Review was also coordinated with a management, exploitation and dissemination event that included presentation of research findings and a panel discussion on business in Asia featuring several experts and the Thai ambassador to Turkey, who formally endorsed the event.
Informal employment and general labour insecurity, are now widely recognized as major concerns worldwide. ILO estimates that approximately two billion people is active in the informal sector. At least 192 UN Member States have committed to SDG goals. Labour insecurity is, however, unevenly distributed. Evidence shows that it is higher among people active in the agrarian sector. It particularly affects the younger strata of the population and that men and women are affected by labour insecurity in very different ways (ILO, 2017, 2018). LABOUR is a research and training programme designed to address the above-mentioned shortfalls of research and development approaches with particular attention to a region where this is particularly worrying concern. Informal employment in Asia is estimated to account for 68.2% of the active population (ILO 2020), with warnings that the situation will rapidly deteriorate because of the COVID-19 crisis (ILO 2020b). LABOUR gathered a team of 18 participants that includes academic and non-academic partners working on labour insecurity, to engage in 1) A training component allowing participants to gain a specialisation in a new field, sector and discipline(s); 2) Explore the nexus between potentially inadequate or ineffective state responses to the rise of job insecurity from a two- fold perspective. This entailed engagement with four major objectives
a) Provide a training opportunity for the researchers involved. This has made possible secondment for 32 researchers already and involvement in local activities for all of them to develop an individually-tailored training path involving secondment, reintegration into the sending institution, participation in network events and carrying out of joint tasks with other researchers from the network. This has made possible a valuable knowledge transfer opportunity across regions, sectors (academic/non-academic) and fields of research.
b) Collect, interpret and process new empirical data. This has been done thanks to long research stays in the target region and integration into local teams that have generated both knowledge transfer and production of novel data. Detailed information on the scientific production is offered below in the relative section
c)) Offer policy recommendations to decision-makers and international stakeholders (international organizations, NGOs), while keeping the general public informed about our latest findings. Insofar, this has been done through secondment opportunities mixed with integration into local realities. Secondments have made it possible in a way to reach out to politimakers and decision makers during the stays and using local partner’s networks to deliver messages about precarious labour.
a) Provide a training opportunity for the researchers involved. This has made possible secondment for 32 researchers already and involvement in local activities for all of them to develop an individually-tailored training path involving secondment, reintegration into the sending institution, participation in network events and carrying out of joint tasks with other researchers from the network. This has made possible a valuable knowledge transfer opportunity across regions, sectors (academic/non-academic) and fields of research.
b) Collect, interpret and process new empirical data. This has been done thanks to long research stays in the target region and integration into local teams that have generated both knowledge transfer and production of novel data. Detailed information on the scientific production is offered below in the relative section
c)) Offer policy recommendations to decision-makers and international stakeholders (international organizations, NGOs), while keeping the general public informed about our latest findings. Insofar, this has been done through secondment opportunities mixed with integration into local realities. Secondments have made it possible in a way to reach out to politimakers and decision makers during the stays and using local partner’s networks to deliver messages about precarious labour.