We need to think of the future in fairer terms: ILO's Dagmar Walter

In an exclusive interaction with People Matters, Dagmar Walter, Director, ILO Decent Work Technical Support Team for South Asia and Country Office for India shares some insights on the impact of COVID-19 on jobs and how employers, associations, and economies can work together to improve the future of the job market

- Mastufa Ahmed

Dagmar Walter has spent over 20 years of her career with ILO, worked in several regions and duty stations across Africa, Europe, the Americas, and now Asia. Contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals 2030, she strives to foster office efficiency and team spirit for integrated technical assistance to ILO constituents in collaboration with stakeholders and development partners. Key areas include tackling employment and social protection challenges from an international labor rights perspective, shaping the “future of work we want” through effective social dialogue. Prior to her ILO career, Walter worked with international development and human rights, as Consultant and Deputy Representative to the various UN human rights bodies in Geneva. Walter holds a Master of Public Administration from the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP).

Here are the excerpts of the interview.

Between April-June 2020, the world lost almost 400 million full-time jobs due to the pandemic, according to ILO. How can we rebuild and reimagine jobs amid the coronavirus crisis for businesses to stay future-ready?

Actually, the situation is much worse. In our last report on the impact of the pandemic published in September, we have estimated that the working hour losses for the second quarter of 2020 were thought to reach 17.3 percent of the global working hours, equivalent to 495 million full-time jobs (based on a 48-hour working week). Lower-middle-income countries are hardest hit, with a decline in working hours of 23.3 percent (240 million full-time equivalent jobs).