At the ILO we are engaged in the struggle to reduce this deficit, and I believe that we all have to be team players if we are to succeed. Behind the decent work deficit there are yawning gaps in employment and in workers' rights which urgently need to be tackled, which need partnership and a common vision. The employment gap is a fault line in the global economy. A hundred and fifty million people are currently unemployed, a figure that grows to more than a billion if you include the underemployed. But we must be careful to remember that unemployment is not just a statistic.
Work is probably the most important single element that affects the life of individual human beings.
Work is also the primary route out of poverty. We know only too well in Europe how the absence of work can breed disaffection and extremism, and ultimately threaten social cohesion by eroding the very values upon which sound economies and open societies are based. Employment issues do not yet receive the global political attention they merit. In the new global economy the growth and enterprise creation needed to absorb the employment gap will not depend only on national policies. The top priority of public and private policy-making must be to promote employment creation worldwide.