[Summary] Previously distinct information-based industries, such as printing, publishing, graphic design, media, sound recording and film making, were converging into one industry, with information as a common product. This trend was named "multimedia convergence", with a massive loss of jobs, and a serious enough issue to be tackled by the ILO (International Labor Organization). The first ILO Symposium on Multimedia Convergence was held in January 1997 at the ILO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, with employers, unionists and government representatives from all over the world. Some participants, mostly employers, demonstrated that the information society was generating or would generate jobs. Other participants, mostly unionists, demonstrated there was a rise in unemployment worldwide, that should be addressed right away through investment, innovation, vocational training, computer literacy, retraining and fair labor rights, including for teleworkers. *** Previously distinct information-based industries, such as printing, publishing, graphic design, media, sound recording and film making, were converging into one industry, with information as a common product. This trend was named multimedia convergence, with a massive loss of jobs, and a serious enough issue to be tackled by the International Labor Organization (ILO). # A symposium The first ILO Symposium on Multimedia Convergence was held in January 1997 at the ILO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Employers, unionists and government representatives from all over the world came to discuss the Information Society, the impact of the convergence process on employment and work, and labor relations in the information age. The purpose of these debates was "to stimulate reflection on the policies and approaches most apt to prepare our societies and especially our workforces for the turbulent transition towards an information economy." As stated in the introduction to the symposium’s proceedings: "Today all forms of information -- whether based in text, sound or images -- can be converted into bits and bytes for handling by computer. Digitalization has made it possible to create, record, manipulate, combine, store, retrieve and transmit information and information-based products in ways which magnetic tape, celluloid and paper did not permit. Digitalization thus allows music, cinema and the written word to be recorded and transformed through similar processes and without distinct material supports. Previously dissimilar industries, such as publishing and sound recording, now both produce CD-ROMs rather than simply books and records." Multimedia convergence was “creating new configurations among an ever- widening range of industries. The digitalization of information processing and delivery is transforming the way financial systems operate, the way enterprises exchange information internally and externally, and the way individuals work in an increasingly electronic environment."