Key Takeaways From the G20 Summit Shaping the Future of Work in 2023

This article is authored by Bettina Schaller, SVP Head Group Public Affairs at the Adecco Group.

The G20 2022 process is a wrap!

This year’s summit, which took place in Bali, Indonesia, tackled a whole “crisis cake” burdening not only G20 nations, but the entire world. Heads of state and government alike spoke at length about geopolitical uncertainty, the effects of inflation, the energy and climate crisis, and, of course, the War in Ukraine.

This year, I once again attended the G20’s business community summit, B20. Let me explain more about how the process works – and the key high-level highlights from the summit.

More about the G20 – and B20

The Adecco Group have been invested in the G20 process for the past 12 years (and counting) as collaboration and engagement at the policy table are instrumental. Since the French G20 Presidency of 2011, a process has been in place that involves the business community – called B20. B20 centers around five key areas of focus as identified by the G20. The Adecco Group has been an active Member of the B20 Future of Work and Education Task Force since that inception in 2011. We’re actively working to decipher the implications of a broader crisis agenda in order to better serve workers, businesses and governments as they navigate seemingly constant uncertainties.

For the past two years, I have participated in the B20 summits in my capacity as President of World Employment Confederation, thus representing the entire private employment services industry. In that capacity, I was also a member of the Women In Business Action Council and the International Advocacy Caucus.

Key Takeaways from the Final Recommendations

In this year’s G20 Presidency, the Future of Work and Education Task Force focused on three crucial advocacy priorities: appropriate regulation for recovery and job creation, education for employability and inclusion. The World Employment Confederation - and the Adecco Group fully endorse the Final Recommendations to come out of this summit as they reflect the Confederation’s policy priorities, which were defended throughout the entire process.

I am proud to say that the much-needed advocacy on diverse forms of work and the many facets of flexibility were reflected in the final recommendations paper. Some of the critical action items are:

• The implementation of national and international regulatory frameworks that recognize and enable diverse forms of work, including open-ended, fixed-term, agency, part-time and self-employed work, as well as platform work.

• Working across public and private sectors to improve the effectiveness of Active Labor Market Policies (ALMPs), including job retention schemes, training and work transition support.

• Investing in improving career management and support services, including a collaborative framework between Private and Public Employment Services organizations.

• Addressing regulatory impediments, as well as other impediments, to formalize and encouraging legal compliance, including the digitalization of relevant regulatory processes.

• Working with businesses to create incentives to encourage entry-level workers from the informal sector into formal employment.

• Building partnerships to inform work transition programs and skills strategies in response to the changing industrial landscape.

• Supporting the expansion of youth-targeted, work-based learning systems, such as VET, apprenticeships, internships and externships, aligned to growth sectors.

• Improving social protection systems to provide access to adequate social protection for all, including people with disabilities, women, youth, the self-employed, platform and own-account workers.

In more general terms, the Adecco Group fully supports the further policy measures laid out in the Recommendations, touching on the main areas of promotion Entrepreneurship, Flexibility, Education and Inclusion.

How the Final Recommendations are built

The process foresees that all five task forces, and the Women In Business Action Council, submit the respective Recommendations to the G20 Heads of State, which then pick up the most salient areas of priority for the Final G20 Communiqué. The Communiqué references Labour Market measures twice, committing to the promotion of Decent Work and the elimination of child and forced labour and to to a human-centred, inclusive, fair, sustainable approach that leads to greater social justice, decent work, and social protection for all. To us, there is a lot behind those words.

For the Confederation, the G20/B20 process is an important area of priority in the yearly Agenda Setting. The Confederation is present in 18 of the G20 Nations (excluding Saudi Arabia; activities are suspended in Russia due to the War).  Many of these powerful Economies show high-level activism in Labour Market Policy Development to adapt to the rapidly changing World of Work.

That is especially true for the European Union, which has a number of decisive Initiatives and Directives in the pipeline that will heavily impact the Industry and the Adecco Group, ranging from the employment status of gig workers and a clarification of their right to collective bargaining to important decisions on pay (such as the Proposal for a Minimum Wage Directive and the Gender Pay Transparency Directive), a proposed Regulation on Artificial Intelligence which will touch on issues around recruitment and possible legislation on the right to disconnect.

In Argentina, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Italy, Japan, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States, the trends are favourable for the sector and thus the Adecco Group’s operations across the ecosystem of solutions and services.

But in the other G20 countries, such as in Australia, Brazil, certain regions of Canada, Mexico and South Africa, the regulatory developments aimed at the Labour Market have been worrisome for the sector in recent months. The G20 and B20 Recommendations on Employment are thus an important instrument as our sector – and the group - fights for appropriate regulation in all of those Countries via the Confederation’s National Federations, in many countries led by Adecco Group Representatives.

Key Takeaways

As one of the leading global companies in the Sector, with the same geographical footprint and a highly aligned Policy Agenda, the Adecco Group fully supports, and when appropriate, drives the Confederation’s G20/B20 Agenda. I thus already look forward to the 2023 G20/B20 process under the Presidency of India next year.