A new report from the United Nations (UN) asserts that workers’ salaries should mirror their societal contributions. Presented by Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, the report calls for salary increases for those employed in essential sectors while imposing limits on industries deemed destructive, such as financial trading, fossil fuels, and tobacco.
The report highlights a stark reality: one in five workers globally lives in poverty. It emphasizes that, for the first time in this century, global wages fell by an average of 0.90% in 2022, failing to keep pace with inflation, while corporate profits increased.
“It’s absurd that jobs most valuable to others, especially for those in poverty, such as caregiving, education, or healthcare, are among the lowest paid, while others are generously compensated despite the social and environmental damage they cause,” states the UN rapporteur.
The rise of globalization and automation has precariousized jobs, particularly for lower-skilled workers in affluent countries. Flexibility has become the norm to create employment opportunities, while in developing nations, wages are suppressed to maintain competitive costs, the study notes.
The gig economy, where companies hire freelancers for specific tasks, and the weakening of labor rights over the past 30 years have exacerbated the situation. The report calls for the creation of lists of socially valuable professions to ensure fair compensation while determining professions where remuneration should be limited due to their harmful secondary effects, citing financial trading, fossil fuel exploitation, pesticides, plastics, and advertising.
“In the current job market, caring for others and the planet does not pay,” De Schutter emphasizes. He envisions a society where nurses, caregivers, and teachers earn as much as bankers or those constructing mansions for the wealthy.
Precarious work is a leading cause of poverty among employed individuals in industrialized countries. In the United States, 10.2% of part-time workers were considered working poor in 2020, compared to only 2.6% of full-time employees.
The report also sheds light on workers in the digital platform economy, where an “economy of transient occupations” prevails. These platforms connect workers with clients, creating jobs on a per-service basis. While 70% of the income generated by these employers concentrates in the United States and China, the European Union saw a sixfold increase in this sector between 2015 and 2020, employing over 28 million people—a number expected to reach 43 million by 2025.
In this new era of precarious employment, women are disproportionately affected, being overrepresented in part-time jobs, perpetuating the wage gap across all sectors, according to De Schutter.
The report emphasizes that no country can develop or maintain competitiveness while keeping its population in poverty. Governments are urged to set minimum wages that protect workers from falling into poverty and social exclusion, including those in the informal sector and immigrants, who are often victims of abuse.
A fair wage should correspond to at least 60% of the country’s average salary, the report concludes, aiming to establish a just and equitable global labor landscape.