BRICS Employment Working Group Convenes in Thiruvananthapuram

Source: PIB| Date: May 6, 2026 

1. The Geopolitical Context: Why This Meeting Matters

The BRICS grouping has undergone one of the most significant expansions in its history over the past two years, growing from its original five members to an eleven-nation bloc that now includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates. This expansion dramatically elevates BRICS as a platform for South-South cooperation; and nowhere is this more consequential than in the domain of labour and employment.

Collectively, the expanded BRICS membership encompasses a labour force running into hundreds of millions, spanning formal and informal sectors, developed industrial economies and fast-growing emerging markets. The Employment Working Group is, in this sense, one of the most practically consequential forums within the BRICS architecture.

India's decision to host the Second EWG Meeting in Kerala is itself notable. Thiruvananthapuram is the capital of a state known internationally for its high human development indicators, robust public health system, and a large diaspora workforce; making it a symbolically apt venue to discuss labour welfare, social security portability, and gig economy protections.

2. Agenda Deep Dive: Four Pillars of the Discussion

The meeting's agenda is structured around four interlocking priority themes. Taken together, they sketch an ambitious blueprint for BRICS-level labour policy coordination.

2.1  Advancing Social Security & Formalisation of Labour Markets

Perhaps the most structurally significant agenda item is the discussion on formalising labour markets and expanding social security coverage. Across much of the BRICS membership; particularly in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East; vast segments of the workforce remain outside formal employment structures and are therefore excluded from pension systems, health insurance, and unemployment benefits.

The meeting will examine the potential of digital public infrastructure (DPI) as a lever for formalisation. India's own experience with Aadhaar-linked direct benefit transfers and the e-Shram portal; which has registered hundreds of millions of unorganised workers; provides a practical template that other member states may adapt.

Equally significant is the focus on portable social security mechanisms. With large intra-BRICS labour migration flows; Indian IT workers in the UAE, Ethiopian labourers in Saudi Arabia, Indonesian domestic workers across the Gulf; the absence of interoperable social security systems creates significant welfare gaps. Any progress toward bilateral or multilateral portability agreements could have tangible impact for millions of migrant workers.

2.2  Enhancing Women's Participation & Inclusion

The gender dimension of the BRICS EWG agenda reflects a growing recognition that women's economic participation is both a developmental imperative and an untapped growth driver. Across BRICS nations, female labour force participation rates vary enormously; from relatively high levels in some African economies to structurally low rates in several Middle Eastern and South Asian contexts.

The meeting is expected to surface policy models that have demonstrated results: paid parental leave schemes, subsidised childcare, anti-discrimination enforcement, and targeted skilling programmes for women in non-traditional sectors. The ILO's involvement as a knowledge partner adds international credibility to any outcome documents that might emerge.

Critically, the discussion must grapple with the intersection of formalisation and gender; since women are disproportionately represented in informal employment. Policies that drive formalisation without specifically attending to gendered barriers risk leaving women behind.

2.3  Employability, Skills Mapping & Development

The third pillar reflects a consensus that the global economy is undergoing a structural skills transition driven by automation, artificial intelligence, and the green economy. BRICS countries face a paradox: high unemployment rates coexisting with significant skills shortages in technology, healthcare, and renewable energy sectors.

Skills mapping; the systematic identification of workforce competencies and gaps; is a prerequisite for rational human capital investment. The meeting will explore whether BRICS can develop shared frameworks for skills recognition and equivalency, which would not only improve domestic labour market matching but also facilitate smoother intra-BRICS labour mobility.

India's National Skill Development Corporation and similar bodies in China and Brazil offer models for large-scale vocational training infrastructure. The question is whether these can be adapted, scaled, or mutually recognised across the heterogeneous BRICS membership.

2.4  Digital Technologies for All Workers; Including Gig & Platform Workers

The fourth theme is the most forward-looking. The gig and platform economy has grown explosively across BRICS nations; from ride-hailing and food delivery in Indian cities to e-commerce logistics workers in China, South Africa, and Brazil. These workers typically operate outside the coverage of traditional labour law, lacking access to social insurance, grievance mechanisms, or collective bargaining rights.

The discussion on leveraging digital technologies to extend services to this workforce is timely. Worker registration portals, app-based benefit delivery, and digital labour market information systems offer the potential to bring gig workers into at least a minimal social protection net; without necessarily imposing the full costs of traditional employment classification on platform companies.

This is contested territory globally, and BRICS members hold a range of regulatory positions. The meeting's value will lie in creating a structured exchange of country experiences, rather than premature consensus on contested questions.

3. Key Facts at a Glance

4. India's Strategic Calculus

For India, the BRICS Presidency provides an opportunity to project soft power through the lens of labour policy; an area where India has genuine expertise and a domestic reform story to share. The inclusion of Thiruvananthapuram as the host city, rather than a Tier-1 metropolis, is a deliberate signal: India wishes to highlight its regional development successes.

Simultaneously, India has a direct national interest in the outcomes. Indian migrant workers constitute one of the largest diaspora workforces in the world, concentrated heavily in the Gulf states; three of which (Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Iran) are now BRICS members. Any progress on portable social security, bilateral welfare agreements, or skills recognition frameworks directly benefits Indian workers abroad and the Indian economy through remittances.

The gig economy agenda is also domestically resonant. India has tens of millions of platform workers in urban centres, and the government has been navigating a careful regulatory path between worker protection and platform growth. BRICS-level deliberations can help India benchmark its approach and build international legitimacy for its policy choices.

5. The Role of Knowledge Partners

The participation of the International Labour Organization, the International Social Security Association, and the UN Resident Coordinator Office adds a multilateral institutional layer to the BRICS EWG process. These bodies bring technical rigour, comparative data, and normative frameworks that can elevate the quality of deliberations beyond mere diplomatic exchange.

The ILO's Decent Work Agenda and its work on social protection floors provide a conceptual anchor for discussions on formalisation and gender inclusion. The ISSA's expertise in social security systems is directly relevant to the portability and DPI discussions. Their involvement also signals that BRICS EWG outcomes will have credibility in the wider international community.

6. Critical Perspectives & Challenges

Several structural challenges could limit the ambitions of the BRICS EWG process:

• Diversity of regulatory regimes: The 11 BRICS member states range from state-socialist labour systems (China) to liberalised market economies (UAE, Saudi Arabia) to social democracies with strong union traditions (Brazil, South Africa). Achieving meaningful policy convergence across this spectrum is a formidable challenge.
• Implementation gap: BRICS has historically been stronger as a forum for declaration than enforcement. The EWG has no binding authority, and outcomes depend entirely on voluntary adoption by member states.
• The gig economy conundrum: Defining 'platform workers,' determining appropriate regulatory categories, and balancing innovation against protection are questions on which BRICS members hold divergent views; making consensus documents likely to remain at a high level of generality.
• Data asymmetries: Meaningful skills mapping and labour market analysis require high-quality data, which varies enormously across the BRICS membership. The absence of harmonised statistical frameworks is a practical obstacle.
• Geopolitical undercurrents: BRICS has expanded at a moment of heightened great-power competition. The presence of both Russia and Western-aligned new members (UAE, Saudi Arabia) introduces geopolitical dynamics that can complicate ostensibly technical discussions.

7. What to Watch For: Outcomes at the July Ministers' Meeting

The Second EWG Meeting is a preparatory step toward the BRICS Labour and Employment Ministers' Meeting scheduled for July 2026. The ministerial meeting is the real moment of political commitment. Analysts should watch for:

• Whether a joint declaration commits BRICS members to specific, time-bound deliverables on social security portability; or remains aspirational.
• Whether language on gig and platform workers goes beyond recognition of the challenge to propose concrete regulatory frameworks or bilateral agreements.
• The extent to which gender targets (e.g., measurable increases in female labour force participation) are embedded in outcome documents.
• Whether India uses the EWG to push for a BRICS-level skills recognition framework that could benefit Indian professionals seeking employment in other member states.

8. Conclusion

The Second BRICS Employment Working Group Meeting is more than a routine diplomatic gathering. It reflects the evolving ambition of an enlarged BRICS to become a serious platform for global economic governance; one that addresses the lived realities of workers in the Global South, not merely the trade and investment interests of member governments.

India's stewardship of this process in 2026 carries both opportunity and responsibility. The opportunity is to shape a multilateral labour agenda that reflects emerging-economy priorities: formalisation, gender inclusion, digital adaptation, and social protection for new forms of work. The responsibility is to ensure that the EWG process produces outcomes that are specific enough to be actionable, equitable enough to be adopted, and robust enough to be monitored.

Thiruvananthapuram, May 2026, may well be remembered as the moment BRICS labour cooperation moved from aspiration to architecture.