WUNRN
GLOBAL EMPLOYMENT TRENDS FOR YOUTH 2015 – YOUNG WOMEN
The report highlights a persistent gender
gap with the rates of young women’s participation in the labour market being
significantly lower than those of young men in most regions. They continue to
be also more exposed to unemployment than their male counterpart.
Providing youth the best opportunity to transition to a decent job calls for investing in education and training of the highest possible quality, providing youth with skills that match labour market demands, giving them access to social protection and basic services regardless of their contract type, as well as levelling the playing field so that all aspiring youth can attain productive employment regardless of their gender, income level or socio-economic background.
Direct Link to Full 110-page 2015 ILO Report:
Global
Employment Trends for Youth 2015: Scaling up investments in decent jobs for
youth
Global youth
unemployment, 1995−2015
GENEVA (ILO News) – The global youth unemployment rate
has stabilized at 13 per cent following a period of rapid increase between 2007
and 2010 but it is still well above the pre-crisis level of 11.7 per cent,
according to the ILO’s Global
Employment Trends for Youth 2015 report released today.
The report highlights a drop in the number of unemployed youth to 73.3 million
in 2014. That is 3.3 million less than the crisis peak of 76.6 million in 2009.
Compared to 2012, the youth unemployment rate has decreased by 1.4 percentage
points in Developed Economies and the European Union and by half a percentage
point or less in Central and South-Eastern Europe (non-EU) and CIS, Latin
America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. The remaining regions – East
Asia, South-East Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa – saw
an increase in the youth unemployment rate between 2012 and 2014, or no change
in the case of South Asia.
Because of a shrinking youth labour force, the youth unemployment rate remains
stubbornly high despite a decline in the number of unemployed youth. In fact,
the rate is expected to creep up to 13.1 per cent in 2015, according to the
report’s projections.
“It
is encouraging to see an improvement in the youth employment trends compared to
the GET for Youth 2013,” says Sara Elder, the report’s lead author.
“But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that recovery is not universal and
that almost 43 per cent of the global youth labour force is still either
unemployed or working yet living in poverty. It’s still not easy to be young
and starting out in today’s labour market.”
More young women and
men in education but still facing a difficult labour market transition
Global
shares of youth in the total labour force, whether employed or unemployed, are
decreasing over time. One reason is that more young people (although still not
enough) are participating in education.
However, millions of young people in low-income countries continue to leave
school to take up jobs when they are too young. According to the report, 31 per
cent of youth in low-income countries have no educational qualifications at
all, compared to 6 per cent in lower middle-income countries and 2 per cent in
upper middle-income countries.
The report also highlights a persistent gender gap with the rates of young
women’s participation in the labour market being significantly lower than those
of young men in most regions. They continue to be also more exposed to
unemployment than their male counterpart.
More young people in developed economies are now finding work but the quality
of jobs is below their expectations. And still too many remain stuck in
long-term unemployment. In the European Union, more than one in three
unemployed youth has been looking for work for more than one year.
Meanwhile, developing economies continue to be plagued by structural
underemployment, informal employment and working poverty. While working poverty
(living on less than US$2 per day) has decreased over the past 20 years, it
still affects 169 million (one in three) young workers in the developing world.
The number increases to 286 million if the near poor are included (living on
less than US$4 a day).
The report offers new evidence on how young people move into the labour market
based on data from recent school-to-work transition surveys (SWTS)* .
For young people who aspire to a stable job, the transition period takes an
average of 19 months. A young person with university education is able to move
to a stable job in one-third of the time needed for a youth with primary
education. In most cases the transition takes longer for young women than men.
Time to scale up
action: Investing in skills and in quality job creation
Rapid changes in technology, in patterns of work and
employment relationship, as well as new forms of start-ups, require constant
adjustment to new labour market conditions and addressing skills mismatches.
Providing youth the best opportunity to transition to a decent job calls for
investing in education and training of the highest possible quality, providing
youth with skills that match labour market demands, giving them access to
social protection and basic services regardless of their contract type, as well
as levelling the playing field so that all aspiring youth can attain productive
employment regardless of their gender, income level or socio-economic
background.
“We know that today’s youth do not face an easy
labour market transition and with the continued global economic slowdown, this
is likely to continue, but we also know that greater investment in targeted
action to boost youth employment pays off. It is time to scale up action in
support of youth employment,” says Azita Berar Awad, Director of the ILO’s
Employment Policy Department.
A combination of efforts that place priority on job creation and target the
specific disadvantages of young people are required to reap the benefits of
public and private investments and of other measures to restore economic
growth.
“The 2030 Sustainable
Development Agenda ,” Berar Awad continues, “and its emphasis
on youth employment in Goal 8, provides a new opportunity to mobilize broad
global partnerships to support action on a more significant scale. Increased
investment is needed to alleviate the scars of the crisis on the present
generation as well as to ensure more inclusive labour markets and societies.”