VATICAN CITY (CNS) — More decent, productive employment and more credit for small- and medium-sized businesses are the best strategies for recovering from the global economic crisis, said the chief Vatican representative to U.N. agencies in Geneva.

There are real “fears that the coming years will be characterized by ‘labor intensive restructuring’ and a ‘jobless recovery'” in which large corporations and stock markets will bounce back, but from which the world’s workers will not benefit, said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi.

People need to turn the current crisis into an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of protecting people’s dignity in the work world, “to encourage a lifestyle of sobriety, solidarity and responsibility; and to direct all economic activities to the common good,” he said.

The archbishop made his comments June 10 during the International Labor Organization’s annual international labor conference June 3-19 in Geneva. He sent a copy of his remarks to Catholic News Service June 11.