State Secretary Thorben Albrecht welcomed a delegation headed by Marianna Shchetkina, Deputy Chair of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus, to the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs on 29 January 2018. Our countries are faced with similar challenges in several fields - be it demographic change, promoting women's participation in the labour market or the issue of digital transformation. We should therefore intensify our exchange of ideas on various levels. Moreover, I would be very pleased to see labour market and social policy issues become an important element of our cooperation in the future
, State Secretary Albrecht said.
The discussion focussed on the topic of Work 4.0 and on the question of how to prepare the workforce for the digital transformation of work. State Secretary Albrecht advocated the involvement of trade unions and employers in the relevant discussions. He underlined the positive experience that Germany has had with the social dialogue between business and labour and a strong social partnership.
The delegation from Belarus reiterated their country’s interest in an exchange of ideas on Work 4.0 and asked for support in the development of future strategies. Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Protection Valery Kovalkov and Deputy Minister of Economy Alexander Chervyakov emphasized this point in particular.