 A very warm welcome to you to the DW World Economic Forum debate coming to you from Manila in the Philippines. This is a vibrant country spanning some 7,000 islands. And despite the natural disasters this country has endured in the past year, the people here remain warm and very optimistic. In fact, the Philippines is projected to be the highest growth rate country in Southeast Asia this year. The success of the Philippines is part of a larger success story of Asia which remains the fastest growing and most dynamic region in the world. Average growth rates here are 6 percent, individual countries have even more. But this is not the whole story. Income disparity is increasing, the gap between rich and poor is growing and more and more people are struggling to make a living and often work in very dangerous and difficult circumstances. We all remember pictures from the factory collapse in Bangladesh last year. That's just one example. So the question before us today is what kind of labour policies and practices must we have to narrow inequality, to improve social cohesion? How do we promote equitable employment? To discuss this I have a wonderful panel with a range of expertise and it's my great pleasure to introduce them to you now. Christof Dushetelier is the head of Asia Pacific and Japan from ADECO. ADECO is the world's leading recruiting and staffing company. Yoshitiru Yuramoto is from the International Labour Organization ILO. He's the Assistant Director General and Regional Director in Asia and the Pacific. Corazon Dinky Juliano Soliman from the Philippines is Secretary of Social Welfare and Development. Pierre Tami is a social entrepreneur. He is the founder of Hega International which works with abused, exploited and abandoned women and children and more recently he set up a 360 degree shift initiative which deals with youth unemployment. Takeshi Ninami is CEO of Lawson. It is the second largest chain of convenience stores in the world. He's also the Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum East Asia and a member of the Global Agenda Council on the Rule of Business. And finally in any labour issue you have to have the voice of the trade union. And this important voice is represented by Christopher Inc. He is a Regional Director of UNI Global Union. A very warm welcome to all of you from me and I invite the audience to please give the panelists a warm reception. Now Corazon we are in the Philippines so I would like to start with you. Your president has a reformist inclusive agenda. We heard wonderful things about what the country is trying to achieve. But on the ground things are looking quite difficult. Unemployment is high, lots of people are marginalized. Where are things going wrong? Well I think the first we have an unemployment rate of 7.3%. Where we need more work is investments in the manufacturing sector. And a more robust agricultural economic work. I say this while we know that we are growing at 7. something percent. And yet we need to make sure that everyone gets the benefit. And this is why the next three years or two and a half years the target is to ensure that we actually make or bring to life what we are calling inclusive growth. And that's by way of positive action on spatial or spatial and sectoral growth. And that means we've identified geographical areas where poverty incidents and magnitude of the poor are high and yet the economic potentials are high too. And that's where we want to bring in investment in the agricultural and the manufacturing sector. Now Yoshi you have lived in this region for 35 years in Asia and the Pacific. You've seen that governments often have very good programs including the agenda that they have in the Philippines is very positive yet so much still remains to be done where are governments here not getting their priorities right. What must they focus on. Well now this is 2015 next year end of it the 10 ASEAN ASEAN nations including Philippines getting into ASEAN economic community is integration aimed for the common production centers and the economic integration but under shared prosperity. So that shared prosperity means inclusive growth you know. And then now we have in Asia a 60 percent of the other workers in Asia is in Brando blue improvement so poverty is rampant. So on that we are already have disparity. Now when we have a disparity now Asian economic community which we are entering and end of 2015 our analysis we've done a study and the report to become shortly say this will aggravate inequality in a community and that's the gender I'd like to see when the solution to prevent avoid aggravating inequality there are a number of things we can do and there's a lot the government can play a role. Of course the employers can do a great deal of things but I think the role of government in directing all this is a very important role to play. Now to narrow inequality and to narrow income disparity is corporate companies play a very important role. Businesses play a very important. Takeshi how do you see the role of your company and other companies like yours in dealing with inequalities and promoting equitable growth. Yes at first we have to discuss the mission of corporations. I believe the mission of a corporation is to serve for society. With the corporations have to live with the society and the prosper together. In that term I believe for example one of missions is to train people so that that they can work efficiently and instead of thinking about one single stakeholder i.e. shareholder we have to deal with the multi shareholders I mean multi stakeholders society first but we corporations have to increase corporate value at the end of the day. So we have to have returns working together with the society and the community. That's the mission. It's a long term vision. So role of business should stay with the long term vision not short term. And then if the society prospers then we can prosper. That's the mission we have to work on. In this context employment is very important and how to let people working together have the secure means safety of employment. That's very important. And they describe you as a CEO with a corporate conscience and we hear some of that this morning. Thank you very much for your comments. Now Pierre we've listened to what should be done what needs to be done. You actually work with people who are on the margins of society in terms of employment. Tell us a little bit about what your perspective has been on working with these marginalized groups out in the field. Well I think first and foremost in my experience whether we work with vulnerable people abuse and traffic women or youth that are unemployed today. What's most important is the restoration of dignity. That makes it very very important for them for them to get a job for a woman that comes out from trafficking or abuse. For her to get a job is a celebration of a dignity and their entitlement to be able to be living at her full potential and being able to contribute to society and therefore living with hope. So that's for them most and for most important the thing to do. However it's also wrong to be able to approach social entrepreneurship and label these people as constantly being marginalized and have this chronic marginalization or abusive background that hangs on their head because undo all the work that is being done to actually bring them out of that particular situation and bring them into equal standing as the rest of the world. Right now one of the things that I want to get a sense of Kristoff is that what is happening in Asia right now. We have seen a major shift in the last about 15 years or so of manufacturing from the West coming into Asia looking for cheap competitive markets to produce their stuff. Why has that happened and what kind of impact has that had on Libre relations in East Asia? First of course Asia it's a multitude of countries so it's not the same in all countries but it's true that in the last two decades we've seen a shift of industry coming from Europe going to East. Not only Asia also Eastern Europe but of course he had a very positive impact for Asia because it allows Asia to grow and grow quite fast. This is not the only reason but this is one of the reasons and of course at the same time he had a very negative impact on Europe because it's not the only reason but it's one of the reasons of the high unemployment in Europe. Now in Europe you have some countries where you have unemployment of people more than 20% and for your generation it's even around 50% like Spain, Italy or Greece. So the impact has been very very difficult how it's going to change tomorrow that's the big question. What's been the impact in Asia? The movement of manufacturing to Asia has also fueled to a certain extent prosperity in this region. Sorry I didn't get your question. What has been the impact of the shift of manufacturing to Asia? I would assume that also the fact that so much business has come to Asia has fueled prosperity in this region. It has to some extent also created jobs for people here which has fueled growth in these countries in East Asia. Yes definitely I think it's again one of the prosperity of Asia is due to that shift and it's bringing a lot of people to work and the access to a job as we were saying it's a lot of things for a lot of people and to bring less poverty, to bring access to and scare etc etc. Now although they have brought some prosperity Chris, there is also a negative impact for labour relations here by the fact what you described they have turned companies, western corporate multinational companies have turned Asia into what you've described at some point as factory Asia. Tell us what your problem is with that. I think the problem is you know many investors shifting from Europe or even from the United States to Asia was capitalising on the cheap labour and the very flexible environment available. So what has happened is that instead of contributing to the improvement of the people they exploited the people by paying them low wages and also recreating the employment and work organisations. I think there are very few employers is like our friend from Lawson who believe at the end of the day you know the corporate have a social responsibility and I think among others this is something that is missing today and so you see today how work are being exploited become more flexible. So in many countries we have more than 60 percent of people who are in the informal sector and because they are informal sector they do not enjoy you know the protection of social security or stability income and I said that this this situation cannot continue like this. It is like a time bomb. I remember last year at the Nepetal World Economic Forum I was participating in a discussion. I used the word you know which is a wrong word actually. I used a new form of terrorism because as workers become disillusioned without the expectation of security of employment and income they would become more desperate. So like it was reported today there was demonstration yesterday against the forum. This is the symptom of the frustration against globalization. So I hope you know that the employers and government must rethink the globalization strategy and try to be more focused about people and to make sure that all this development benefit the people. Now what you talked about the informal sector the statistics are quite staggering that in East Asia about 50 percent of the labour forces in the informal sector it's almost 70 percent in Southeast Asia and in South Asia it's about 80 percent in the informal sector and in the Philippines Corazon it's two-thirds of the labour forces in the informal sector and what Chris talked about providing a social component to draw these people into more formal arrangements of work. What is the Philippines doing there what needs to be done in terms of policy to draw these people from the informal sector into a more formal wage relationship? Well first of all the first thing that we need to do is to ensure the rights and welfare of those in the informal sector are taken cared of. So we do have a national convergence program for the social protection of informal workers. This is led by the Department of Labor and Employment and working together with the other national government agencies put together a package of ensuring two skills training so that they can get into the formal sector. Second social insurance particularly health insurance we have a universal coverage for at least 14 million individuals right now or families and third making sure that there is a capital seed for micro small and medium entrepreneurs who are in the informal sector right now with very high interest rates from informal creditors bringing them through the micro credit and micro finance institutions that are managed either by civil society organization groups and or in partnership with government. Now obviously skilling and reskilling is a very important tool to bring in people from the informal sector and provide them more opportunities. Nappya you have worked you have three businesses you've set up in recent years dealing precisely with skilling people tell us about what your initiative is about and how successful it has been. Well we're currently working at this issue particularly with the launch this year of the culinary academy one of the biggest challenges in jobs creation is the fact that any businesses have to succeed commercially and when they look at the workforce at the labor particularly in Cambodia very young you have a big challenge of skills. So we're trying to intervene stronger in this area by creating this academy and how we do that we structure it probably because of my many years in where if I learn about the public private partnership getting the government at the table getting the private sector of the table and the civil society and say this is this is all our problem to try to solve these issues because each one stay at the corner and sing their song and blaming someone else that should be doing their job. So we try this here to bring the three at the table and say this is our problem we are going to solve it together and provide skills particularly high-end skills high-quality sometimes we enter too cheap just because it's Cambodia just because it's Afghanistan they're poor just do this it's just this very demoralizing and little the the the integrity and the dignity of the people and I as a Swiss I'm bringing in a Swiss and high-end skills training in cooking to be able to lift these people up with skills or you can go to Cambodia run business and we can provide a labor force that is highly trained and skilled but it's a big challenge. So it's not just providing skills but providing high quality skills. Absolutely yes. I guess you want the the statistics which is also staggering which we must mention that 70 percent of the working poor of the world are actually in Asia it may be the fastest growing region but it also has a high proportion of the working poor. Now you tell us he talks about bringing all the stakeholders to the table to discuss this. Where are we failing the people of this region? I think I just picked up one of the issues that's been raised that in the manufacturing with Christoph as mentioned. I just visited Bangladesh it was about the 24th of April that was a commemoration of the Rana Plaza collapse and they Bangladesh they employed four million people majorities of women from rural area and not really educated so-called they used to be in the informal sector, environmental sector now they got employment four million and the Bangladesh and an export they're getting 24 billion bucks every year from this export second largest next to China. Of course the working condition is rather very poor so that I think because this is now international supply chains international supply chains the governance of international supply chains particularly on the labor intensive the in the industries is is is rather need a lot of improvements but you have a consumer now there is a compliance issue trade and compliances that people are pushing labor you know for example the garment or t-shirt made in the country by workers with the poor labor conditions consumer says I don't want to buy this t-shirt but this is made out of blood sweat and tears you know and well suppliers and brands get the pressure you have to comply so there are some compliance issues and this is the international value change this is the as I said cheap labor so I think asian including philippine now if we are in transition period we move out from from from cheap labor export oriented labor intensive goods and services to more productive innovative you know and and and based in more internal demand so you're calling for more consumer awareness as well that we should not be buying products which are perhaps not made in the most perfect conditions or on the backs of sweat blood and tears of workers I'm not I'm not saying certainly I mean consumer awareness is a very important element in this debate but also what Takeshi was talking about in terms of enhancing corporate value by long-term sustainable practices you raised an important issue about women labor and that's an issue Takeshi you feel quite strongly about very few women in the labor force comparatively in Japan what needs to be done there this is a shameful story about Japan but I have to tell you Japan is ranked below 100 in the world in terms of the female participation in workforce Philippines number five and that means we can't we Japan can't now provide the equitable employment especially to women but I think cooperation has a it's a it's a role to increase the female participation workplace such as how to increase the environment work environment for women because diversity comes out of the women at first and then people from abroad and this is a huge challenge because we have the strong culture of male domination but in the world you know who decides shopping women right so definitely bringing a more female workforce means a big return to corporations as well at the end of the day corporations have to make money but it's a long-term commitment by top management and that leads to the equitable employment and Prime Minister Abe is now very serious to increase the female participation and well I think of role of business as well as role of government both work together toward the equitable employment especially in no country Japan definitely more women to be able to work and I think that's quite a potential because we've been under the decline of the population and I know there are lots of talented women and we have to bring them into to contributing to the economic growth so that's very important we have to learn from Philippines if I can I don't on Japan because I'm living in Japan I think it's Japan it's very specific because Japan have a real demographic issue that's really the labor force is decreasing very very fast the statistics are talking about reduction of about 50% of the labor force in the next 30 years that's huge so I think there is no other solution for Japan than bringing back women to work but they will have also to face or to bring more immigrants to Japan and it's not too easy where when in the rest of Asia countries who don't have demographic issues they have they have much more education issues education meaning education of young but also re-skilling or training of the people and the workforce who are actually working now Christopher you tell us about you know the women are just one element of vulnerable groups in the labor force you also have child labor you have migrants you have floating populations how does one regulate for them how does one skill them how does one provide them with education as what everyone here seems to be suggesting I think most importantly is that we have to recognize you know all these labor in whatever shape and form as labor with that in place then the existing legislation would then become applicable today you know these informal workers this 70 over percent of informal workers fall outside the definition of the standard legislation and this is the problem that we are facing and because they are outside the legislation they are not given the necessary protection and also the social security benefit I mean you can live with it for a while but it cannot be a perpetual arrangement this is why we think it one of the important this what they of course you know other than exploitative employers they also are the reality of you know the competitive pressures the technological innovations so some of these informalization of work are actually a necessity responding to those reality I know many unionists were not agree with me but I said that sometime we have to be a realistic we have to accept this as inevitable so we have to work together with employers and government to see how we can strike the balance between the industry need for competitions and the workers need for security I think this balance is is an element that is missing and do you think in this balance a minimum wage across the region across the various sectors plays a crucial role I think for start the minimum wage is critical because it's set in a so-called so safety net and I think it is clear also if you look at the the financial crisis in 2008 one of the reasons is because you know there are too much of production too much of services not enough of consumers immediately after the financial crisis in 2008 without exception all government have stimulus package and one of the critical factor in the stimulus package if to give money back to the citizen to purchase and I was surprised at the one year later everybody forget about it so now they're back to you know business as usual so when we argue you know for minimum wages it is because common sense prevailing without the consumers there's no use producing the goods or these services and I think this is something the ADB in their report repeatedly also pointed out but once again I want to emphasise that this is a solution this is a problem that can only be solved with the close consultation between the stakeholders there can be no no discussions about it is your responsibility it's not mine it has to be a collective effort but Pierre you are one of the people who believes the minimum wage is not a very useful tool to deal with social economic inequality no as much as I basically try to do all the best to bring people into the workforce and assure that they are treated with respect and not being exploited I believe that setting a minimum wage it's a short-term solution it's like a surgery you want to fix something from the government perspective it's very dangerous because it can be seen as a vote votes buying it can be seen as a way to draw populism to draw people towards the government and is an artificial measure because like in Cambodia is a private sector is a private sector economy driven and the private sector the market should regulate itself I also come from Switzerland where two weeks ago being on the opposite end of we voted against it I believe that the government market should regulate itself and the government intervening in such a way it will skew the economy and create damages and practically speaking in Cambodia you raise any of our employee ten dollar on her salary everyone knows about it she comes home at five four six o'clock in the evening her landlord already will raise the rent the place where she goes and buy her food will raise the price of rice so in one day that money that she got more already swallowed up so we don't believe it is you want to add to that but there's one thing that element that I want to also bring in is the demographic dividend of this area but first I would like your comments on the minimum wage issue well um you'll see in particularly in the in the in the countries where informality is is high and poverty rate is very high minimum wages is to counter inequality it counters inequality because the market really doesn't really functioning properly well fair share of the labor is if you don't intervene in the market it doesn't really come true now uh it's a minimum wage service serves in one interesting purposes it's the uh it's a protection of workers against the unduly low wages there could be very low wages there's unduly low wages minimum wages protect workers for that and the second it protect the employers it protect the employers in such a way that the against unfair competition from wage dumping the Winston Churchill a long time ago he said that the uh that good employers is undercut by the bad the bad is undercut by the worst so this is the race to the bottom however this is a very vulnerable politically highly sensitive issues in every country's country in asian this is if you start these issues is is going to be a high debate now important things is the wage setting mechanism it has to represent sort of what we say minimum living wages it has to take look after the family it has to look after the uh the the productivity economic economic factors and there are mechanisms we don't intervene sometimes it's been decided by politically because just before election i raised the you know wages by double so vote me well i think we should have the wage setting mechanism and we don't intervene as Chris Chris says it has to be done between workers and employers and the government can come in that's how we just said however it is it it is you know the topic of today's discussion is how labour policies you know help avoid inequality and this is minimum wage is a section for that Gorshan i want to come to you you were a social worker and an activist and you worked for an NGO before you joined the cabinet so you now have this big chance to tackle inequality and yet we discover that in the Philippines 40 families own 76 percent of the GDP that how does one i deal with the statistic of that kind in a position that you have when you are secretary of social justice and development social welfare and development i beg your pardon social welfare and development but two things i'd like to add first on the minimum wage which is part of creating the the change in terms of power between labour and those who own the corporations the minimum wage as already said is actually an equalizing and ensuring that in markets that are imperfect as already said the rights and the welfare of the labourer and their families are taken cared of so here we have a regional wage council so it's geographic specific and it takes into consideration the situation of the area so there is no one national minimum wage so that you don't end up in the situation that our friend from Cambodia is describing second on the question of how do we then begin or we have begun the reforms so that it is not a pyramid but it is and what you call a quad a quadrangle where we all are benefiting from inclusive growth education is number one and and and that includes addressing the informal sector situation so we're actually doing conditional cash transfer where we want to keep children in school and keep them healthy we have four million four point two million families who are benefiting from that about 10 million children it's an investment in the future because if you're educated know the three R's and has a consciousness of rights and welfare for yourself family and community the chances of being abused and knowing that you should be negotiating for your fair share of the benefit of the growth you are you have that capacity you have the dignity to fight for because you know that you have that right and the third is we really need to more and more promote multi-stakeholder dialogues and that's something that we have been I would like to say investing a lot the participatory processes of this government the president was talking about this is a participatory public where many of the policies both in the economic and the social realm are being discussed at the level of the village community-driven development grassroots participatory budget processes are just some of two or three programs that involve the citizens themselves in that way we're able to change incrementally together with the other stakeholders including the big owners the 40 the four 40 families 40 families who own engaged in what I would call instead of corporate social responsibility it is responsible corporations in other words the responsible corporations is thinking about the future and not just about profits and thinking about the rest of society Takeshi one of the very important elements we've been talking about at various levels is education and skilling who should be taking responsibility now there's a model that we have in Germany where there's a two tier education system where you have academic studies and you have vocational training a lot of big companies feel that they should be involved in vocational training so that you broaden the base and you open opportunities for younger people is that something that you would support in your company and you think company should support in terms of education definitely that's a role of government to to give the opportunity and but training I think business can contribute to provide the skills and definitely just like East Asia basically the growth comes from cheap labor at first but now that this region is stepping into the second stage of the growth which means they need skills to other the you know not from a cheap labor rented this region has to be prepared for it not only by the government effort but but also corporations so let me talk like a role of business is to provide enough skill sets to people working together and then and the the basic education comes from the role of government I think that's very important and the training all this training is very important but at the end of the day definitely skilled gap happens in that in that sense I think the government has to do something for their skilled gap and the definitely training should be taken care of by corporations and what about yeah Chris I wanted to ask you because you have a very unique perspective because you work both with employees and employees what would you share with us on this so first I would like to have that I think that education start with a family I think again all of us having family or kids it's part of our education system to explain to our young generation the way to go to work I'm always talking about a recent example of my son with 14 and it's part of the French educational system to bring them one week to know the the the company's a private sector and I think it's a good start and I think it's the sooner you can start to understand what is the the the world of private sectors of companies or non-profit organization but what is it what does it mean to have a job what does it mean to go every day to work what does it mean to to how to talk with people etc it's part of the family education that we can provide then of course the government have to play their role then school college university etc then also of course the company so it's true that at Tadeco doing being in the staffing and recruiting we have a special role that we're playing because we are as you said in the middle of the companies we are looking for people and the people who are looking for job and we are providing all time of all kind of flexibility because I think flexibility it's key also to bring and especially marginalized people to to job and to work to help them I think it's a more flexibility you have more you will be able to bring more people to work and I think this is something very important and on the risk-killing and retraining I think also here there is a lot to do and we can do a lot internally or externally right now I just want to share with you that you know we put this on the topic of equitable employment onto the website with a hashtag ea growth and within the space of about three days we had 100,000 interactions on this hashtag ea growth and this is just an example of just how much interest there is in this topic now I want to turn to you Yoshi I want to ask you that you know this is a very important topic obviously people feel very strongly about equitable growth as opposed to equal employment and equal equitable has a qualitative nature to the term as opposed to equal employment is there a lot of competition within ASEAN itself which is undermining equitable employment and growth it's the opportunity is the it has to be given to somebody who wants job but the this trend in ASEAN growth our study proves that the finding is in 2025 because of the AEC Asian Economic Community there will be 14 million jobs will be created okay and the GDP impact will be eight percent close to 300 billion bucks in addition to RCEP which has been discussed TPP and trade related activities it is the rosy picture it brings the growth it brings the GDP up quite a percentage and it create a creator employment as it is lacking however you know the there's a gap skill gap because the company want to be competitive when the company wants to competitive they want a skilled job and the government and and the big project infrastructure broad networks and and all because now it's in connectedness of ASEAN this important issue there's a high demand for skill job amongst the private sector and the public sector that means that means there'll be shortage of skilled labor where we're going to fill it the mid-level low-level people unless there is a special very special training training employment services skill training we're going to have this integration is going to aggravate aggravate the gap in inequality this is a very dangerous sign I think we start seeing this history has shown us whenever there's inequality it has great potential for social and economic unrest I mean when you think of the occupy movement that we saw recently the labor unrest you've seen in India and Cambodia and Bangladesh and several other countries I want to focus a little bit on the demographic dividend of this area the whole of the Asia Pacific region has a fairly young population you are working very closely in our pair with young people is there enough focus being put on providing them with the right kind of education and the right kind of skills no it's basically our challenge and our battle right now Cambodia which is very different from other markets has sees about 300,000 young people landing the job market every year not only that are not enough jobs or not good well-paid jobs but also the issue is a skill we need to come back to the skill but here is my issue for three years I've come into World Economic Forum and I hear a lot private sector and and government talking about these issues you know particularly of skills providing high quality skills and I've been to fantastic discussion of people clapping hands particularly if a woman would say so but then when I when I go home I ask the private sector are you willing to pay for it and my my my I'm sorry to say my experience three years I'm trying to put together this culinary academy to provide high quality skill people for an industry there is among the fastest growing in the region the hospitality tourism industry 27 percent so everyone in from Ben is stealing each other chefs there are not enough chef there are not enough cooks but you know what no one is willing to pay everyone wants it everyone talks about it in the academic sense in the scientific sense from the western perspective which Cambodia wouldn't care less about it but the point is no one is willing to pay for it and this is the challenge if we want skill level someone has to pay for it and and I like to hear the the gurus of employment how what recipe they can provide because we try to train 200 cooks but I just there is another colleague here a social entrepreneur is doing the same with vulnerable youth but the point is really 300 000 youth Amrita and how are we going to to intervene effectively with impact I mean I appear you put your finger on the thing we all get together we all talk and we all agree we all must do everything we must have a multi stakeholder but what is actually done on the ground and Corazon you want to tell us what you are doing in the Philippines there is there is an agreement between the BPO industry the state universities and colleges on the kind of skills that's needed and that increased the capacity of the BPO's to absorb because we have this kind of agreement and that's managed by the technical enhancement skills development authority so that's one and we're moving in the direction of having more agreements with industry the kind of skills that they need and working with the universities state we have what we call the commission on higher education and that's where the test that the technical is enhancement skills development authority the commission on higher education and the department of education which is taking care of k kindergarten to grade level 12 so we're we're putting together the kind of curriculum that industry would need and and it's very industry specific we've started out with BPO's and I know that in the export processing zones they're also trying to work this out the challenge I think is really in agriculture because we still are an agriculture country and that needs to be really worked on we're running out of time now and I would like to kind of ask the audience to say a few words but before we turn to the audience Takeshi you wanted to say something well education is the key but well I think that the adults growing companies like to train people a lot to retain good talent so I think that there are lots of emerging ideas that the you know private sectors want to provide the training together with the government it's not that you know white and then black and definitely corporations have to participate into the training people I think Pierre and Takeshi have to have a conversation after this debate is over because you have to find the right private sector personally to help you and you have to have the right project to support now before we do that I would like to ask the audience if they have any questions any comments that they'd like to share with us I would request that you identify yourself and my suggestion would be to please focus the comment on a particular panelist rather than saying leaving it to the whole panel to answer we cannot get the whole panel to answer so I will begin with this gentleman there in a gray tie that's you wait for the mic to come in identify yourself and please ask a targeted question thank you madam my name is Peter von Dijk I work with Sinermas Indonesia we have 400 000 employees in Indonesia we are one of the largest employers and we are one of the largest taxpayers we work as Mr Ninami said with a lot of schools there are no schools we build them there are government has schools we support them because we have an interest as you rightly mentioned now the informal sector is there where we need to make change we integrate small holders into our production because we want to produce sustainable palm oil sustainable paper and so on and so forth but I don't hear from Mr Uramoto and I don't hear with all due respect from the Philippine government a proposal a program an idea on formalizing the economy to really register every person and every business I hear about microcredit keeping the enterprises informal it is not formalizing them thank you so that was a comment I take it or would you like a response from Yoshi or Karozan okay Karozan if you want to give me a brief response to that and then we'll take other questions and we can we have social protection programs that is the first step to formalize the informal sector and that's registering them finding out where they are and then bringing them into the more formal sectors but first build their capacity to even manage whatever it is that they're engaged in in a manner that's working dignified and not on a mouth a day-to-day type of existence right this lady the blonde lady with a blue shirt can I answer this a little bit sorry I'm sure Yoshi would like to add something yeah this informal sector issues is a very very difficult job indeed very difficult in in in this year's international labor conference this is one of the topic how we going to formalize informality but even there is a reverse is taking place some of the former sex are becoming informal yes and that's that's also the case well there is an incentive built in the incentive because often you don't have to pay tax you don't have to follow the labor core labor standards and you don't have to pay or much you don't you don't have to follow the rules but you can profit and not hope profit is yours and but at the same time there has to be some benefit or formalizing it what do you get if you are if your company SME particularly a small and medium cyber enterprises if they are registered the government and a system has to give incentive that this is what you want to get if you formalize it and there are some effort done in in in Vietnam for doing that and but I think still there's a there's a long way and I think there's a lot of things can be done for example migration there is this asian integration you know there's a lot of migration but what has been agreed on migration is only eight professionals doctors accountant architects and all that and that is less than one percent of the workforce of the entire asian so what about medium skill low skill when they want to migrate when they want to do something how can we interchange the certificate assess the assess the level of skills how do we certify them how do we accent importability of those skills so integration in Europe people move around and they they have you know the somebody from Portugal with the doctor's degree can work in other EU countries but that certification is still yet to come and if that comes I think you know gradually from mid mid-skill level to the law law skill level you know this is the whole system has to has to be developed on the on that but I must say it's a very difficult difficult area very difficult thank you Yoshi the lady and the mic and thank you I'm Elizabeth house or strand I'm the founder and CEO of build change it's a Schwab foundation I'm a Schwab foundation social entrepreneur my question is about the construction industry my dad is a bricklayer he's a mason he taught my sister and I how to lay bricks so I think there's a lot of dignity in in construction fields but they're becoming these kind of crews are becoming a lot less popular and so I'm wondering what can be done to increase the dignity of construction jobs which maybe has to do more with value like you say everyone wants skilled professionals but someone has to want to pay for it and I'm also interested in in taking that one step further and understanding what else can be done to encourage more women to join the construction sector I was meeting with tesda the Philippines technical education and skills development authority the other day who told me that Philippine women tend to be better welders than men so so I guess my question is better directed to Mr Urimoto what can be done to increase the appeal of construction sector jobs and what can be done to increase the number of women in those jobs if I understand your question I think the constructions I as I said mentioned before is going to be particularly for asians countries it's going to be a booming industry because there's a lot of investment on many international financing institutions even talking about it donors talking about it people are talking about this it's interconnectedness infrastructure infrastructure road transportation and and the tariff in ASEAN is almost reached over 90 percent you see so what is the trade facilitation that if somebody wants to trade poor facility is not adequate or the one-stop shop is not there so you can't really facilitate trade though tariff is very low you know so infrastructure I don't think as a construction workers there'll be a shortage of laborers shortage shortage of skilled laborers I tell you we're going to have it very soon shortage of skilled labor everybody wants the skill labor and then there'll be a shortage what we're going to do you have to either price of the skill labor cost is going to shoot up like like you never unprecedented manner and then because skill labor sometimes they move around in ASEAN but the laborers they have unprotected they have to move around and and and mutual recognition because basically not ASEAN level agreement but country to country to a country so they are dangerous the law law skill the women I know there's a lot of you know construction work on women I remember India the employment generation job you know they have a hammers and then this is the that you get 90 days per year if you're employed and they give a job and getting bought in the world construction many of them in India is women but I think this is some redundant workforce but in in asia it's only six percent unemployment rate six percent but this is poor quality job an idea is how can we make a poor quality job a better job decent job for lower skilled people and including women women's the percentage of decent job amongst women is very low thank you Yoshi I think we it's a very important point that you make and also what the ILO is behind this decent work agenda not just work but decent work more questions please this gentleman here in the Brownswood first row yes and can we have a brief questions and may I also suggest brief answers so we can get more people involved that race against time my name is Yohei I'm global shippers from Tokyo Japan my question is what drives the exploit power of women in Japan one of my idea yeah you know I'm Mr. Ninami and Mr. Ninami now one of my idea is changing of the work style of men and for example when I was 28 I dropped out my company I was in so huge at 18c 102 but it was really hard to working then at that time my wife wanted to work in a flower shop in my local so I dropped out my company and start my social entrepreneurship so I want to ask to Mr. Ninami what is the key of the you know exploit of women's powers thanks well briefly that's a firm commitment of top management and top management has to believe that that will create returns financial results at the end of the day but the long term commitment and the top management has to know it creates returns to corporations thank you thank you very much thank you see the lady at the back talking about women that's right Rowena Domingo I'm an entrepreneur and wife of the Secretary of Trade of the Philippines I have ideas for the equitable employment maybe if we could go back to supply and demand we could match the graduates to the jobs we have a very young population 23 is the average of our population and this would also I think benefit as for the integration because we could look also at the regional and also I would like to say we have talked you have talked about family we are 100 million population in the Philippines I believe family would be difficult it would be difficult to be having the values coming from the families we should have it in the schools we should have value formation and it should be from the from K as we start K to 12 it's very important this would also integrate having that sense of not just thinking of profits but thinking of the community and the country as a whole or the region as a whole as we integrate thank you thank you very much for that comment any more questions the lady in the maroon hi my name is Claire and I'm head of corporate social responsibility for Microsoft in Asia Pacific we identified a couple of years ago a growing challenge for young people that those under 25 are twice as likely to be unemployed and there's also affected skilled university students as well as those who are the working poor so I have two questions to Mr I'd like to ask what you think the opportunities are for technology to have a positive effect here and for Mr Dushetelia when we talk about partnerships we think of public private or a civil society we think of three points what are the opportunities for corporates to actually come together to partner in that so it's not just a three-point partnership we start with you Mr Dushetelia so regarding partnership I am not sure I get completely your your question but I think we need to have a big dialogue between all of us it's a question of what talking to our young generation where they are going what is the way they want to work because it's changing and so they're not going to want one job for their life they want to have different experience different jobs so we need to understand that so if we talk to them we will understand where they want to go at the same time we need to talk to entrepreneur to understand what are the new skills that entrepreneurs are looking for if we don't talk to them we will have a school teaching young generation completely in a different way that they want to go and that from the skills that are searched by the company so I think it's a question of dialogue I think the advance of technology is just that there is no stopping technology a day will come when we literally we have no work actually because technology can do everything that we imagine it to be this is why in part if we look at this employment situation whether it's you know irregular employment or otherwise the problem is the result also of the application of technology I think we have to be more selective at the end of the day you know I think there are some job that has to be done by human being service oriented job for example and I think this is a discipline that has to be imposed by the entrepreneur themselves because if you don't you know then everybody in the name of profit shareholders responsibility will convert everything into you see a technologically driven for the sake of generating profit as I said earlier on you know if you look at today look at our friend you know they are filthy rich Microsoft you know billions of dollars so much so that they have to give it away you know in a philanthropic way my human is very simple if they make less profit then there's no need to give away I mean it's it's I know it's it's not the logical but I think it don't make sense you know if you make so much of profit until the people have no job and then you start giving away the money so I think a balance have to be there must be a balance and I don't think it's wrong we're not saying that we should not use technology we're saying that you have to use it in a very careful manner so that it contributes to humanity rather than what we are seeing today so I yeah this is my opinion about it thank you we're running out of time now so I'm going to let two more questions in before we start ending up so we have two ladies the lady in the white outfit here and then the lady with the scarf at the back hi I'm Mary from Asian Journal newspaper it's the Filipino-american newspaper in the States I'd like to ask Ms Stinky regarding how the government decides on the location for resettlement for legal settlers I mean do they take into consideration the employment opportunities in that area yes first the consideration of it's a safe area this is for communities that were resettling because they are in hazardous areas if they are informal settlers in highly urbanized centers also maybe in danger areas they're resettled in safe areas second if there is no livelihood opportunity there we create because we do know and experience has told us that those that we have resettled and there are no employment or livelihood they all come back here and they stay on the sidewalks because they don't have any more places to go back to so yes it's very important that we either create or ensure that the situation local government units and private sector in that area are coming in with investments for jobs now before we go to the final question I just want to remind you once again that if you'd like to leave your thoughts you can write to hashtag EA growth and be part of the conversation on equitable growth and we now go to our final question of the session the lady with the scarf at the back hi my name is Misan Battazaki I'm from Japan I've been running my own business since my age of 26 16 years and unfortunately this doesn't contribute to the ranking of Japan okay my question is to Mr. Ninami in terms of employment policy I understand that as Mr. Tami said they should not be exploited views but when you look at Japan we are the third largest economy and we have our mature employment systems policies and mature means in other words extreme so for the enterprise point of view it's sometimes difficult to cope with that there's no flexibility so my question to Mr. Ninami is where do you think the comfort don't for employees and employment uh so employers sorry well we've been discussing how to be able to ask people to leave we call them dead words but I think before talking about how to ask people to leave we have to create more ventures business opportunities then we have to create the job mobility that's very important and if you have the more job mobility then you can ask people because people can find jobs but before then you should ask corporations what did you do in terms of training and I think a skill comes from corporations I believe and the basic education comes from government and I think that kind of a social responsibility to be taken by corporations before talking about the firing people that's my policy thank you Takeshi before I conclude this session I'm going to give pay at 30 seconds to make a final comment everybody's had their say I would like you to say just a few yes 30 seconds to say a final comment and then I'll conclude the session well my final comment is we need to continue to work hard on it I still believe the public private partnership is the way to go Cambodia would be the first one to have this particular project we need to be more pragmatic if we want people to earn more money in our industry then don't complain you're charged five percent service fees and leave a big tip that's the way you raise the salaries of our staff don't vote for it pay for it thank you very much now it's often said that Asia's greatest asset is its human capital and if we don't protect this capital we don't allow it to flourish to its full potential it could have profound implications not just for the people themselves but also for the region's economic prosperity and it's very important not to have just economic growth but it has to be accompanied by social progress I thank all of you very much for being with us please join me in thanking the panel but for the excellent contributions the audience here and also thank you to all of you who are watching wherever you may be you are watching the DW World Economic Forum debate coming to you from Manila in the Philippines I'm Amrita Chima great to have you with us