PRESS RELEASE

COLABOR 2024 CONFERENCE 'Work, Vulnerabilities and Social Security: instruments and policies' - December 13, 2024

Labor relations, production processes, and labor market institutions in Portugal are undergoing diverse and even contradictory changes. The Portuguese economy shows positive performance in wealth generation, job creation, and openness to the outside world. However, wealth generation is lower than in most European countries, and the labor market remains marked by low wages, multiple forms of job insecurity, and inequalities in resources and opportunities.

These trends materialize according to specific institutional references and regulatory frameworks. In this context, collective labor relations and the Social Security system fulfill important social, economic, and political functions. However, the anchoring of the social security system in labor remuneration makes it dependent on the employment profile and career paths, thus suffering the impacts of the trends that characterize the labor market.

The complex reality described highlights a strong interdependence between work, employment, and social protection. In this context, the CoLABOR 2024 Conference presents a systematic overview of this interdependence and a set of new tools for integrated socioeconomic analysis, while also promoting a qualified debate on the future of social security in our country.

CoLABOR is the only collaborative laboratory whose agenda focuses on the themes of work and employment and their connections with social protection systems, promoting their centrality as factors of social and economic progress.

The CoLABOR 2024 Conference will take place on December 13th at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundationin Lisbon, and this year's theme is "Work, Vulnerabilities and Social Security: Instruments and Policies".

During the morning session, the activities carried out in the current year will be presented, the first edition of CoLABOR's annual publication, entitled "Work, Employment and Social Protection in 2024", will be launched, and the Comparative Remuneration to place the user in their position in the income distribution in Portugal.

A complex socioeconomic reality implies the construction of integrated analytical tools. Therefore, in the morning, two panels will be held to present projects and tools developed by CoLABOR. These panels will present the Social Portrait of Lisbon, a document based on the statistical data platform for the city of Lisbon LxStat, the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) for the city of Lisbon, the Inequality Toolkit for evaluating public policies , and a project on the evaluability of training and education policies. Both sessions will include commentary from experts in different areas.

In the afternoon session, CoLABOR will host a debate on the main themes raised by the Green Paper on the Sustainability of the Social Security System, prepared by the Commission for the Sustainability of Social Security and currently open for public discussion until December 15th. The debate will be organized around two roundtables, the first featuring three former ministers responsible for Social Security , and the second involving qualified researchers from different disciplinary areas.

The meeting will be closed by Manuel Carvalho da Silva, Director of CoLABOR, and by the Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho.

‍ ‍