The cost of living crisis is likely to dominate discussions at the G-20’s meeting on employment — called Labour20 or L20 — which will be held in Jodhpur in the first week of February, said Kee Beom Kim, a macroeconomic and employment policies specialist at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva.

Trade unions around the world have been undertaking protests, industrial action and collective bargaining to protect the purchasing power and working conditions of workers in the face of high inflation, Mr. Kim told The Hindu in a detailed email interview, adding that the issue would likely continue to dominate in 2023.

Mr Kim, who was recently in India for preparatory meetings before the L20, said that issues such as growing debt sustainability concerns in developing countries leading to various austerity programmes, and the measures being taken to protect jobs and incomes are also likely to be key topics of discussion.

In terms of rising food prices and policy responses in India, the international community has much to learn from India, he said. “Rather than undertaking ad-hoc or knee-jerk reactions, India has relied on its public systems of support for people’s economic security and access to opportunities that it has been building for decades. This includes the expansive food distribution system and a guarantee of 100 days of paid work per year for working-age people in rural areas. This is to highlight the importance of proactively building systems of support and automatic stabilisers versus reactively relying on targeted and temporary approaches to crises,” the noted policy expert said.

Supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic and the spillovers from the war in Ukraine have led to rising inflation, and this is causing real wage growth to become negative in many countries, as documented in the ILO’s Global Wage Report 2022-23. “This is reducing the purchasing power of workers and is hitting low-income groups particularly hard. And this cost-of-living crisis comes on top of the significant losses in the total wage bill for workers and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic, which again had the greatest impact on low-income groups in many countries. Higher levels of good quality jobs, including through formalisation, and adjusting social assistance and other social protection benefits, including minimum wages, to inflation are important in sustaining demand and the purchasing power of the most vulnerable,” Mr. Kim added.

He said that the “great recession” and the COVID-19 pandemic were slowly leading to more thought being given on the role of macroeconomic policies, including a greater appreciation of counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policies in fighting recessions, and of policy frameworks that support inclusive growth and productive employment.