ABSTRACT

The inability of countries to provide sustainable employment for a growing labour force constitutes one of the most powerful obstacles to social and economic development in the new millennium. In the late 1980s, it was estimated by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that between 1985 and 2000, a total of 1,000 million new jobs would have to be created in order to establish full employment world-wide (ILO, 1988). As Potter and Lloyd-Evans (1998) have highlighted, the global urban population alone had increased from 737 million in 1950 to 2,603 million in 1995 (ILO, 1995). As there are important links between production and employment, social equity and poverty alleviation, the ability of countries to provide sustainable work for their growing populations is crucial. It is people, therefore, who must be the focus of policies which attempt to address vulnerability and poverty.