MELBOURNE: Labour and welfare ministers of the G20 countries called Thursday for the creation of hundreds of millions of "decent jobs" to reduce poverty around the world.

"It has been almost five years since our first meeting on global financial crisis. Many governments have introduced many measures to improve the situation of labour and contracts," the ministers said in their joint statement at the end of a two-day meeting in Melbourne.

"However, there is still a need for generating hundreds of millions of decent jobs to take families out of poverty and achieve sustainable development," according to the text.

Among those attending were ministers from the US, Australia, Japan, Germany, Spain and Mexico who all said they were committed to preventing structural unemployment, creating better jobs and promoting participation.

"Jobs are the main goal for the G20 in order to achieve a strong, sustained and balanced growth," the statement said.

"In 2014, the G20 committed to giving comprehensive growth strategies to strengthen companies in such a way so that they generate employment and opportunities," the statement said.

In a joint press conference after the meeting, Austrlian Labour Minister Eric Abetz said that the statement, which was adopted unanimously, was "audacious and ambitious, but achievable", while Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus described it as a "framework and not an action plan".

The final statement considered public participation and broad policies as important to boost development. It also included three points relating to underemployment and irregular work, which especially affects Latin American countries.

Also Read:
5 Awesome Jobs You Didn't Even Know Exist
Degrees That Help Grads To Pursue In-Demand Jobs