Jobs are critical for achieving the World Bank's goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. However, there are major challenges including insufficient demand for formal labor jobs, low productivity of self-employment, inadequate skills, and fragmented job programs. Effective solutions require building coherent social protection and labor systems with connected programs that address challenges across the life cycle. Countries must also develop multi-layered policies that are tailored to their unique jobs challenges.

1. Jobs as Pathways to
Ending Poverty and
Boosting Shared
Prosperity
Arup Banerji
World Bank Labor Core Course 2013

2. 2
Renewed World Bank Group Goals
End extreme poverty: the percentage of people
living with less than US$ 1.25 a day to fall to 3
percent by 2030
Promote shared prosperity: foster income
growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population
in every country
Sustainability, an overarching theme
Achieving these goals require promoting
environmental, social, and fiscal sustainability

3. 3
The poverty target of 3% by 2030
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024 2028

4. 4
Most household income is generated through jobs
70 68
46
59
67
73
49
79
39 37
58
38 36
50
36
29
35
10
26
23 24
35
31
21
17
30
17
41 45
29
47
38
35
49
53
32
35
54
self-employment wage employment transfers other
Source: Covarrubias and others (2012) for WDR 2013

5. 5
Inclusive
Growth
Job
Creation
Poverty
Reduction,
Growth of
Incomes
Infrastructure,
Human Capital
Investments
TransfersTaxes
So jobs are critical for both the
goals

6. 6
But there are huge challenges …
1. Insufficient demand for formal labor, and
low participation – especially for youth
2. Low productivity of self-employment
3. Inadequate skills
4. Fragmented programs

7. 7
1. A world at work, but not a world of wage earners
Work status:
farmers
self-employed
wage earners
Source: WDR 2013 Calculations
wage
43%
farmers
34%
self-
employe
d
23%
wage
87%
farmers
5%
self-
employe
d
8%
wage
66%
farmers
10%
self-
employe
d
24%
wage
47%
farmers
26%
self-
employe
d
27%
wage
50%
farmers
29%
self-
employe
d
21%
wage
19%
farmers
48%
self-
employe
d
33%
East Asia and the Pacific Europe and Central Asia
Latin America and
the Caribbean
Middle East and North Africa South Asia
Sub-Saharan Africa
Source: WDR 2013

8. 8
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tanzania
Thailand
Ukraine
Ghana
Brazil
Indonesia
India
Chile
Pakistan
Turkey
Egypt
Lebanon
percent of youth population
not in school or labor force unemployed
Source: WDR 2013
1. Unemployment but also idleness for youth

9. 9
2. Poverty and the prevalence of (low
productivity) informal work
Source: OECD: Is Informal Normal? and World Bank Group (2007).
ARG
BEN
BFA
BOL
BRA
CHL COL
CRI DOM
DZA
ECU
EGY
GTM
HND
HTI
IDN IND
IRN
KEN
MAR
MEX
MLI
MOZ
NERPAK
PAN
PER
PHL
PRY
ROM
RUS
SLV
THA
TUN TUR
VEN YEMZAF
ZMB
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
ShareofInformalEmploymentin
TotalNon-AgriculturalEmployment
Share of Population Living Below 2 USD (PPP) a Day

10. 10
2. Women often over-represented in informal
employment
53.5
52.3
54.3
64.9
83.1
73.4
77.2
85.7
47.8
50.2
49.1
51
59.1
70.8
78
82.9
0 20 40 60 80 100
Mexico
Brazil
Thailand
South Africa
Kenya
Philippines
Indonesia
India
Men
Women
Share of informal
employment in
total non-
agricultural
employment (in
%)
Source: OECD
Development Centre,
2009

11. 11
3. Employers complain about the lack of job-relevant
skills
Sources: IFC Jobs Study, World Bank STEP study

12. 12
(Source: World Bank 2010)
CCTs:
Nutrition
Risk
mitigation
and
innovation:
Social
Insurance
Active
labor
market
programs:
Training
CCTs:
Education
Labor
regula-
tions
3. But ALMPs need complementary steps to
build Skills

13. 13
Pregnancy,
Early
childhood
School age
Youth
Working
age
Old age
Employment
services,
entrepreneurship,
training and skills
Unemployment,
disability
insurance
CCTs for (girls’)
education
Youth
employment
programs, skills
training
Old-age pensions,
disability
insurance
Nutrition/ECD, CCTs for
pre-school, health
Example: SPL programs across the life cycle
4. Programs for labor opportunities need to work
together across the life cycle

14. 14
Towards answers 1: Three distinct layers of policies
are needed (WDR 2013)
14
Source: 2013 World Development Report on Jobs

15. 15
Program
Program
Program
Program
Towards answers 2: Building social protection and
labor systems (connected “portfolios” of programs
to address various challenges
Administration level:
Aim: Building basic subsystems to
support one or more programs for
security, equity or opportunity
Admin.
sub-
systems
Program level:
Aim: Improving design of existing
programs and harmonizing across
portfolio of programs
Policy Level:
Aim: Ensuring overall policy coherence
across programs and levels of
government
Source: Robalino, Rawlings and Walker (2012)

16. 16
Program
Program
Program
Program
Towards answers 2: Building social protection and
labor systems: Examples
e.g., connect beneficiary
databases across training and
unemployment benefit
programs
Admin.
sub-
systems
e.g., ensure that there is a
smooth connection from
beneficiaries going from
welfare to work
e.g., promote coherence
between taxation incentives
and employment objectives
Source: Robalino, Rawlings and Walker (2012)

17. 17
Towards answers 3: Different countries have
different jobs challenges
Source: WDR

18. 18
www.worldbank.org/spstrategy
go.worldbank.org/TM7GTEB8U0
(WDR on Jobs)
www.jobsknowledge.org
For further information, visit