Total employment in ASEAN increased by 11.8 per cent between 2000 and 2006. This increase was reflected in the increase in 27.8 million additional jobs during the period. Despite this positive trend, ASEAN recognises the challenges it faces in ensuring that its workers have access to productive employment while at the same time enjoying social protection. ASEAN is also faced with the challenge of aiming for universal coverage of social security and protection for its labour force considering that most of the insurance schemes cover the formal sector only and are built on a narrow membership base.  Lack of social security coverage is largely concentrated in the informal economy which provides significant employment in the region.

Since 2000, ASEAN’s work on labour and human resources has been guided by the ASEAN Labour Ministers (ALM) Work Programme. The Work Programme provides the framework to prepare the region’s labour force to face the challenges of globalization and trade liberalization. The five broad priorities initially set in the Work Programme are in the areas of employment generation, labour market monitoring, labour mobility, social protection, and tripartite cooperation. In May 2006, the ASEAN Labour Ministers agreed in their Joint Statement of 2006 to add a sixth priority area, occupational safety and health (OSH), in the ALM Work Programme. From the six priorities under the ALM Work Programme, two area-specific work programmes have been adopted by the ASEAN Senior Labour Officials for priority areas on tripartite cooperation and OSH capacities and standards in ASEAN.

Apart from the priorities set in the ALM Work Programme, ASEAN made a groundbreaking move to address the issue of migrant workers on 13 January 2007, when its Leaders signed the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. The Declaration mandates ASEAN countries to promote fair and appropriate employment protection, payment of wages, and adequate access to decent working and living conditions for migrant workers. As a follow-up to the Declaration, an ASEAN Committee on the Implementation of the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers was established in July 2007.

In collaboration with its Dialogue Partners, a number of activities and various studies have been completed, are on-going or being prepared by ASEAN.  These activities and studies come under the purview of the ASEAN  Senior Labour Officias Meeting (SLOM) and its subsidiary bodies. The ASEAN Labour Ministers’ Meeting (ALMM), which meets every other year, oversees the overall work under the ASEAN cooperation on labour. In addition, the ASEAN Plus Three Labour Ministers’ Meeting (ALMM+3) was established in 2001 under the framework of ASEAN cooperation with China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (Plus Three Countries), and is now convened back-to-back with the ALMM. 

Relations between the ILO and ASEAN have been ongoing since 2003 and have led to several joint initiatives and projects. A Cooperation Agreement between the ASEAN Secretariat and International Labour Office was signed in March 2007.