Employment and Labour on Labour 20 (L20) South Africa 2025 Summit

International Labour Organization (ILO) Director-General Gilbert F. Houngbo said the world is faced with growing inequalities including a lack of skills and vocational training. He said access to health, water and sanitation was becoming dire.

Houngbo said in a nutshell equal access to opportunities was becoming a serious challenge “in our daily lives".

“Until governments and societies grapple with such issues, we will not get close to talking seriously about how to redress inequalities. We must cultivate a holistic approach to dealing with inequalities. We must recognise the interdependency of human basic rights.

“We cannot either afford to lose sight that decent jobs and livelihoods underpin the social development and of course social justice," he said.

Houngbo was speaking on Tuesday (29 July) evening during the Labour 20 (L20) South Africa 2025 Summit. The summit was held under the theme: Fostering solidarity, equality and sustainability through a new social compact. It brought together union leaders from across the world.

The ILO Chief was participating during the session on Fighting inequalities, fostering real wage growth and increasing the labour income share of GDP. The aim of this session was to have a dialogue between L20 trade unions and certain G20 labour and employment ministers to discuss joint approaches to tackling inequality, fostering wage increases, and increasing the labour income share, as a key priority of this year's employment track.

The L20 component engagements were held alongside the 4th G20 Employment Working Group meeting held at Fancourt in George on 28–29 July.

Houngbo said South Africa’s Presidency of the G20 has recognised the far-reaching social, economic and political consequences of rising inequalities, hence the realisation of prevention and reduction of all forms of inequalities and for them to be placed at the heart of economic policy-making.

“So, we in ILO want to applaud this approach. We are committed to supporting this holistic action," he said. He added that there has been a rise in inequalities in the world of work. He said the labour income share of income has been declining globally over the last 20 years.

“The key here of course is that the declining labour share is accompanied by and reflected in the decoupling of wages relative to labour productivity. Labour productivity has grown faster than real wages between 1999–2024.

“The response then must entail a comprehensive and integrated strategy to reduce and prevent inequalities in the world of work with a mix of very robust strategies in an inclusive partnership and cooperation," said ILO DG.

The 11th Director-General of the ILO, elected in March 2022, said paying of living wages was in line with keeping up with ILO principles. He said the focus should be on redressing the root causes of low pay and closing discriminatory pay gaps in a transparent manner.

He said the tripartite stakeholders of ILO need to focus on avoiding a proliferation of different methodologies and ensure that minimum wage setting institutions are at the heart of the living wages. He said the ILO calls for new methodologies to strengthen the existing tripartite institutions.

“In other words, how do we ensure that we can actually deal a serious blow to stubborn inequalities and increase labour income share of the GDP. All of us need to take a stand, the office needs to see how we can take the leap, so that we move from conceptualisation on living wage to concrete action," Houngbo said.

Enquiries:
Teboho Thejane
Departmental Spokesperson
Cell: 082 697 0694
E-mail: teboho.thejane@labour.gov.za

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