Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia
Managing Labour Adjustments in an Integrating ASEAN
The integration processes of ASEAN are ushering changes in the labour market across the region. Unions complain that jobs are increasingly becoming precarious. Human resource managers find it difficult to retain talents that have become mobile under the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint (ASEAN, 2007b) allowing the free flow of skilled labour. And labour administrators are faced with three major policy issues: (i) how to promote human resource development in a labour market that has become regional, (ii) how to balance the demand of workers for more protection and the demand of industry for more labour flexibility, and (iii) how to maintain industrial peace in an integrating ASEAN? To address the foregoing, the paper argues for increased bipartite and tripartite social dialogue in accordance with the 'ASEAN Guidelines on Good Industrial Relations Practices' adopted by the ASEAN Labour Ministers in 2010.
