Care services seen generating up to 475M jobs by 2030 — ILO
THE care services industry could produce up to 475 million jobs by 2030, a new report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) said.
“Increasing investment in the care economy in order to meet SDG ( Sustainable Development Goals) by 2030 has the potential to generate a total of 475 million job[ s],” the ILO said in its report “Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work.”
The 475 million estimate is ILO’s high-end projection, which assumes that care services expand in order to meet SDG requirements by 2030. The high estimate compares with 358 million jobs in the ILO’s status-quo scenario for 2030, which assumes that care services develop based on current and constant standards and conditions.
The status quo scenario “includes 94 and 95 million care workers and 29 and 30 million non- care workers in education and health and social work, respectively. In addition, 110 million jobs are generated in other sectors ( indirect jobs),” ILO said.
The report surveys 45 countries representing nearly 60% of the global population and labor force and 85% of global GDP.
The ILO found that increasing investment is needed even to achieve the status-quo scenario. If investment does not exceed six percentage points of global GDP by 2030, “deficits in coverage will increase and the working conditions of care workers will deteriorate,” it said.
The expected public and private expenditure for the statusquo scenario is $ 14.9 trillion, corresponding to 14.9% of GDP by 2030.
“This increase is driven by population growth and, primarily, demographic transformation, particularly increasing health and long- term care costs,” ILO reported.
Public and private expenditure to achieve the high-end scenario is $18.4 trillion, which would correspond to 18.3% of the countries’ projected GDPs by 2030.
“Of this additional spending, 1.3 percentage points are due to additional expenditure on education, 1 percentage point is due to additional expenditure on health and 1.2 percentage points to expenditure on long-term care for older persons,” ILO added. —