The International Labour Organization (ILO) has released a new Social Protection Spotlight Brief highlighting the critical role of unemployment protection in ensuring income security and supporting full, productive, and freely chosen employment. Titled Building Rights-Based Unemployment Protection Schemes, the brief provides practical guidance for countries confronting increasingly frequent and complex crises.
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the importance of unemployment protection schemes in safeguarding workers’ incomes and sustaining consumption, thereby supporting broader economic recovery. The brief emphasizes that well-designed unemployment protection not only cushions income shocks but also facilitates a return to quality employment.
The ILO guidance draws on international social security standards as a foundation for effective, rights-based unemployment protection systems. These standards help countries align income support measures with employment promotion objectives, ensuring that protections are both adequate and strategically integrated with labor market policies.
Key ILO instruments highlighted in the brief include the Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102), which sets minimum protection levels and governance principles, and the Employment Promotion and Protection against Unemployment Convention, 1988 (No. 168), along with Recommendation No. 176, which provides more advanced standards for unemployment protection.
The brief underscores that unemployment protection must be complemented by employment policies promoting decent work. It supports governments and social partners in developing systems that protect incomes while accelerating transitions back into quality employment. Alongside a related brief on why individual unemployment savings accounts are insufficient, the guidance reinforces that robust, rights-based social insurance systems are cost-effective, equitable, and essential for promoting social justice and inclusive labor markets.
