Commit to Human Capital Development
Migration for work in Asia and around the world now spans all categories of skills and professional know-how. While some governments and employers are now distracted from their commitment to human capital development, UNI Apro Regional Secretary, Christopher Ng, noted that this would naturally have a negative impact on industrialization and job creation. He warned that countries losing brains, skills and talents are also bound to lose in the game of global competitiveness.
Christopher Ng was speaking as a panel member in an interactive session on the theme “Strategic Shifts: The Future of Human Capital”. The interactive session was part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions held in Tianjin, People's Republic of China on 11 - 13 September 2012. The event was attended by over 2,000 participants from 86 countries.
As the regional headquarters of the global service union, UNI Apro has been closely watching all developments in migration and labour. Whilst seeking protection for all migrant workers, Christopher Ng and his team in UNI Apro believes that the trade union movement should not seek merely skills development for skills development sake but also to recognize the development priorities of developing Asia.
Christopher Ng reminded the audience that a rounded program of education, skills formation, and knowledge accumulation, will not only facilitate the development of an individual worker and enhance the employment and income security of a worker and his/her family but also strengthen the values of fairness, equality and social responsibility.
Therefore, it is not enough to talk about human capital formation in a segmented and piecemeal manner, especially if one is discussing this in the context of the challenge of rebalancing growth to insure inclusive development.
For this, we need greater policy coherence in human capital formation and economic and labour market governance. Such coherence at the national level should be part of a better architecture of regional and global integration, where the human and social dimension of globalization is fully enshrined.