Human Resource Impacts of the Economic Crisis

The overall purpose of the project is to assess the human resource impacts of the global economic crisis and to identify what is and is not working in retaining and creating new employment and earnings. This project will touch upon issues including responses to the global economic crisis and also support the upcomming 5th HRD Ministerial Meeting. The four objectives are as follows:

1. Develop an analytic framework to assess the human resource impacts of the global economic crisis and the effectiveness of Social Safety Net (SSN) and Labour Market Systems (LMS) (including active labour market interventions)
   
2. Assess the human resource impacts of the current global economic crisis and document SSN and LMS responses across Economies.
3. Build the capacity of APEC member Economies to effectively use SSN and LMS responses when dealing with the current economic crisis.
   
4. Evaluate what is working and what is not working with respect to the effectiveness of the SSN and LMS responses of APEC member Economies to the economic crisis. This evaluation will include a particular focus on the gender dimensions of these responses and using the crisis as opportunity to reform training and education systems.
   

Human resource impacts include changes in employment (including skill retention), employability, earnings, family income and other indicators of human economic well-being. Government responses to address these outcomes typically involve strengthening SSN and LMS. Strengthening SSN alleviates the economic duress from reduced income, or loss of income, due to unemployment. Strengthening LMS addresses employment concerns in a variety of ways including creating jobs, matching workers with jobs, or improving skills so citizens may obtain jobs. SSN and LMS systems, when configured optimally, should be part of an integrated policy package.

Agenda

Conference presentations and discussion topics will include: General Impact of the Global Recession on the particular economy (GDP and per capita GDP impacts, Impact on government revenues, Sectoral impacts, Investment consequences, Trade consequence ); and General Policy Responses to the impacts of the Recession (Government borrowing and expenditure strategies , Investment, trade, welfare and sectoral strategies). Specifically, these case studies will detail labour market impacts as a result of the recession and examine the success of interventions that were staged in response to this crisis.

Project conference attendees

Click for further information about project aims and final timetable.

Research paper on Labor Market Responses

Labor Market Policy Responses in APEC Economies to the Worldwide Recession

This report examines existing labor market programs in the 21 members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) and their responses to the current worldwide recession. It documents recent increases in unemployment, describes existing programs and outlines the new initiatives that were introduced to lessen the hardships experienced by the unemployed. (see full summary).

Research Paper on Human Resources Responses

Human Resources and the Global Economic Crisis: Effective Social Safety Nets and Labor Market Policies in APEC Member Economies

This report compiles some of the experiences shared at this meeting. A chapter presents a general summary, 10 case studies detail the impacts and interventions in individual APEC economies, and a research paper examines the labor market policy responses in APEC economies to the worldwide recession.

Conference Presentations

• APEC HRD Response to the Global Economic Crisis
  by Federico Macaranas
  
• The Global Economic Crisis and its Effects on SSNs and LMSs by Bruce Bolnick
  
• The Global Economic Crisis and its Effects on SSNs and LMSs
  by Aidi Hu
  
• World Bank Crisis Monitoring
  by Vivi Alatas
  
• SMERU's Crisis Monitoring System
  by Rizki Fillaili
  

Case Studies Summaries and Drafts of Member Economies

Summaries and drafts of case studies relating to the human resources development impacts of the economic crisis: