Algorithmic management has been seen as a positive technological and digital factor in the organization of economic activity, but it also comes with a range of challenges. While some may see it as a useful tool for increasing organizational ability to control and monitor complex economic and work processes, with the increasing capacity to collect, store and process digital information it also raises new issues and engenders questions about ensuring privacy and personal space among the workforce.

In this episode, Uma Rani, a Senior Economist at the ILO’s Research Department and Enrique Fernandez Macias, a researcher at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre explain what algorithmic management means and what considerations are needed to ensure that it plays a positive role in the future of work.

Over the past decade, the world has witnessed a rise in platforms and the growing platformization of work. Many of the new forms of work are being generated in the gig economy. These trends are also pervasive in India. While these developments have resulted in increased access to work for women, they are also characterized by higher levels of uncertainty and lesser incentives for skills- and capacity-building, among other challenges. What lessons can be learned from India regarding the creation of more equitable access to jobs in the digital economy? What are some of the policy considerations to overcome these challenges? This episode responds to these core questions.

This podcast episode features an interview with Sabina Dewan, President and Executive Director of the JustJobs Network, Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in India, and Lead of the research project on the digital future of work in India commissioned by the German Agency for International Cooperation or GIZ.

Life is about transitions--at work, in our personal lives, as we age. Diverse megatrends – from demographics to climate change, from globalization to technological advances and digitalization – are transforming the world of work in ways that are presenting, sometimes new turbulence to the difficult transitions throughout our lives, What’s more, the COVID pandemic has further added to the transitions we’re facing. A solid understanding of labour market transition patterns and of people’s aspirations and needs is essential to ensuring protected and effective transitions. This episode aims to enhance global knowledge of such patterns for informed and timely policymaking, particularly in emerging and developing countries and identifies the role digitalization plays as a driver of changing transition patterns but also as a facilitator of transitions.

Digitalization is changing the nature, mode, and pace of work. This means the skilling and re-skilling of workers will be essential if enterprises and entire industries are to maintain and increase functionality and productivity, effectively manage shocks, ensure, and sustain the well-being and livelihoods of workers, and create decent jobs. Understanding and anticipating the evolving skills needs is a crucial step that can guide the training of workers. This episode explores labour market skills needs, and how education, training and lifelong learning can effectively skill and re-skill workers throughout their lives in an evolving and increasingly digitalized labour market.

This podcast episode features an interview with ILO Senior Skills and Employability Specialist and Team Leader on Skills Strategies for Future Labour Markets Olga Strietska-Ilina.

In many ways, digitalization has made the world of work a better place, supporting growth in both productivity and incomes. Yet many groups of workers, in particular, those who are already disadvantaged and marginalized such as women, older persons, and persons with disabilities, face dual challenges associated with unequal access to digital technologies compounded by the lack of capacities to use them. This lack of access to modern technologies has been even more pronounced in traditional divides – rural versus urban, and developing and emerging economies versus developed economies. Other characteristics such as age, and skills levels add to the widening of the gap. In this episode, Professor Balaji Parthasarathy of the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore, India, and Matteo Sostero of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre discuss the digital divide and offer some ideas for narrowing it.

Many countries have a very young workforce. While this population dividend can have a positive impact on growth and development, young people often can’t find decent jobs in formal work settings. Now, there is a growing trend toward work that has gone on-line, and is staying on-line. This episode explores how digitalization through “crowd working” platforms can be used as a tool to tap into the labour market potential of a young population, facilitate the creation of new jobs, and further the development and economic growth of an increasing number of societies.

The episode features an interview with Niall O’Higgins, Senior Economist in the ILO’s Employment Analysis Unit, Employment Policy Department.

This podcast investigates the possibilities of using big data to analyse ongoing work trends in both developed and developing economies as a means of anticipating future work needs. It discusses different types of big data such as online job vacancies, and geospatial data sources such as satellite imagery with a view to seeing how such information can track and measure economic growth and other indicators in both developing and developed countries and help inform policy design and implementation.

This episode features Tony Bonen, Acting Executive Director of Canada’s Labour Market Information Council in Ottawa, and Matthieu Charpe, Senior Economist at the ILO’s Employment Policy Department.

Increasing digitalization and use of new technologies have pushed employment policies in new directions worldwide. In the wake of the recent pandemic, while there has been an increase in the number of workers in informal employment, digitalization and technology are also helping others transition to formal employment through a process called E-formality. At the same time, the digital and technical evolution in public employment services (PES) that help match workers with jobs and employers find the workers they need, is playing a critical role in supporting a recovery from the pandemic and other labour market disruptions.

Podcast features ILO Employment Policy Department's Vicky Leung, Technical and Programme Officer, Transition to Formality Unit, and Michael Mwasikakata, Head, Labour Market Services for Transitions Unit.

Tanto el trabajo forzoso como el trabajo infantil son problemas de gran importancia en México, un país pionero de la Alianza 8.7 que ha acelerado el paso para erradicar ambos abusos. En este podcast, analizamos las causas principales detrás del trabajo forzoso e infantil en México, lo que se está haciendo para combatir estos problemas, lo que falta por hacer y cómo lograr hacerlo.

El podcast presenta entrevistas con cuatro expositores expertos de empresas y de organizaciones empresariales y de empleadores que tienen experiencia de primera mano en la lucha contra el trabajo forzoso y el trabajo infantil. Entre ellos abarcan varios temas relacionados con estos dos problemas incluyendo la visión del sector privado para su erradicación, la contratación equitativa, el impacto del COVID-19, la importancia de las certificaciones, la formalización laboral, la seguridad social y el desarrollo de capacidades, entre otros.

El podcast se centra especialmente en el sector agrícola y destaca la importancia del papel que juegan las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas para eliminar el trabajo forzoso y el trabajo infantil.

People are living longer than ever before in both developed and developing countries. And in both cases, older people either want to, or have to, keep working, often out of the realistic fear of falling into poverty. In this podcast Dorothea Schmidt-Klau, Senior Economist at the ILO’s Employment Policy Department, unpacks these trends in ageing in the world of work and how to address them.