Context: The 1st BRICS Employment Working Group (EWG) Meeting held on 11-12 May 2021 in Sushma Swaraj Bhawan, New Delhi in virtual format.

Key highlights

• India has assumed BRICS Presidency this year.

Prime agenda for the discussions were

• Promoting Social Security Agreements amongst BRICS Nations
• Formalization of labour markets
• Participation of women in labour force and Gig and platform workers – Role in labour market.

The participants were Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and the representatives of International Labour Organization (ILO) and International Social Security Agency (ISSA).

• The Member Nations resolved to enter into dialogue and discussion with each other and take it forward towards signing of the agreements.
• The Social Security Agreement would help the international workers to port their benefit to their home countries thereby preventing loss of their hard earned money.
• The member countries resolved to promote participation of women in remunerative, productive and decent work and to extend social security cover to the women workers engaged in informal sector.
• The member nations discussed how the proliferation of Digital Labour Platforms is transforming the labour processes in the world of work.

BRICS
BRICS is an informal group of states comprising of:

• Brazil, Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa.
• South Africa joined this informal group in 2011 and BRIC became BRICS.
• It was established through the Russian initiative on 16 June 2009.
• The first formal summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
• It together represents about 42% of the world population, 23% of GDP, 30% of the territory and 18% of the global trade.
• The acronym BRIC was first used in 2001 by Goldman Sachs in their Global Economics Paper.
• The BRICS members are all developing or newly industrialised countries.

All five BRICS nations are G-20 members.

• At the Fortaleza Summit (2014), in Brazil, important institutions were created: The New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA).
• At the 11th BRICS Summit held in Brasilia, the Brasilia Declaration was signed.
• It advocated Strengthening the multilateral system, Economic and Financial Cooperation and cooperation on the fight against transnational crime, especially against organized crime & money laundering.

Goals

• To promote dialogue and cooperation among our countries in an incremental, proactive, pragmatic, open and transparent way.
• To serve common interests of emerging market economies and developing countries.
• To build a harmonious world of lasting peace and common prosperity.

BRICS comprises

• 41 % of the world's population,
• 24 % of the global GDP and
• 17 % of the share in world trade.