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Mr Erol Kiresepi, Chairman of Santa Farma İlaç Sanayii, Deputy Chairman of KİPLAS and Honorary President of International Organisation of Employers (IOE), addressed the third Joint Dialogue Forum which was organized under the main theme of “Future of Work” by Turkish Confederation of Employer Associations (TİSK) this year.

Organized under the “Future of Work” theme by TİSK for the third time this year with a view to bringing together the representatives of public institutions, workers and employers as the three pillars of business life, the Joint Dialogue Forum “JDG 2021” was held in the form of a hybrid event with the high level participation of international organisations on October 14-15.

High level representation of international organisations

IOE Honorary President Erol Kiresepi, who addressed the participants in the International Organisations part of the Forum, indicated that the impacts of Covid-19 pandemic were far more serious than anticipated and they were deeply felt especially in developing economies and lower income societies.

Even though global economy is anticipated to grow by 6% and 4.9% in 2021 and 2022 respectively, Kiresepi noted that achieving the pre-pandemic employment rates would take time and countries undergoing severe problems could not be expected to tackle them on their own given the fact 88% of USD 11 trillion used for mitigating the impacts of pandemic was spent by countries in high income group while only 2.5% was spent by developing and low income countries.

IOE Honorary President took note of the limited access to vaccination especially in Africa and underlined that international cooperation could assume a key role in resolving problems such as vaccination, which means that it is high time to redesign multilateral international systems in order to make them fit for the purpose. He also explained that the action plan adopted by IOE is an indication of the unshakable belief of global companies in the UN’s role in tackling those problems.

Women are most severely affected by the crisis in workforce markets

Addressing “Women” and “Youth” which were among the themes of the Forum, Mr Kiresepi explained that women’s employment dropped by 54 million globally in 2020 and according to the data provided by ILO, only 43% of women in working age could take part in employment in 2021, which implies that equal opportunity for women is not only a human rights problem but also a development and business problem.

Similarly, the number of youth employed in G20 countries dropped by 11% in 2019-2020. Mr Erol Kiresepi noted that the biggest danger would arise from the serious challenges the youth would come across in case of attempting to become part of workforce market again.

Mr Erol Kiresepi, who is also Co-Chair of B20 Employment and Education Task Force, noted that modernization of education and training systems is discussed at G20, G7 and several other forums for a long while and it is necessary to develop new methods and tools to solve this problem. He underlined that the contributions to be made by platforms such as Joint Dialogue Forum will have a critical role in that respect.

Energy transformation and carbon-free economies will give rise to great transformations in workforce market

Regarding the climate change, IOE Honorary President referred to the significant impact of the future processes on the workforce market and shared the suggestions of the business world on the measures required to be taken in terms of employment, social policies and education. According to Mr Kiresepi, it is necessary to take measures to embrace green industries and regions with the best workforce market potential in addition to enabling employees to acquire new skills, adopting regulations to increase employment and creating open, dynamic and inclusive workforce markets which will support vulnerable groups through robust social protection systems.

Cooperation is essential for an economically efficient and environmentally sustainable recovery

Referring to the importance of cooperation, IOE Honorary President Erol Kiresepi underlined that inactivity will have utterly negative consequences for all stakeholders in global scale and developing countries need to develop innovative approaches such as environmental solutions to reduce black economy, enhance capacity and skills, improve access to technology, and create employment and economic value and to take goal-oriented actions in order to become more resistant to shocks such as climate change and Covid-19.

Mr Erol Kiresepi expressed his opinion that the obstacles to invigorated and sustainable economic growth and employment may only be eliminated through a global cooperation and multilateralism which will prepare the economies for this transformation by means of smart and future oriented actions and cooperation is essential for an economically efficient and environmentally sustainable growth at this point. Mr Kiresepi concluded his speech by saying “Our motto, ‘Possible together’ is still relevant and we must take action in line with this motto as all social parties.”