The crisis in youth employment

On October 8^th, 2015, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) published the latest report which said that despite the modest recovery in the period from 2012 to 2014, the unemployment rate among young people is much higher in comparison with the period before the crisis.

Under title “Trends of youth employment globally in 2015”, the report noted that the unemployment rate of young people worldwide has remained stable at 13% after an increase in the period from 2007 to 2010 but still higher than the 11.7% level before the crisis. The report also highlighted the decline number of unemployed young people at 73.3 million people in 2014, down by 3.3 million in comparison with 76.6 million people at the peak of the crisis in 2009.

To compare with 2012, the rate of youth unemployment fell by 1.4 percentage points in the developed economies and the European Union; and 0.5 percentage points or less in Central and South-Eastern Europe (non-EU) and in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa. Other areas, such as East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa have recorded an increase in unemployment over the period 2012 - 2014 or no change in South Asia.

Despite the decline in the number of unemployed young people due to the narrowing of the young labor force, the youth unemployment rate is still high. According to the report, this rate will increase slightly to 13.1% in 2015.

“It is encouraging to see that the trend in employment of youth is improved in comparison with the 2013 report” - Sara Elder, lead author of the report said. "But we should not lack vigilance by the fact that the recovery is not common and almost 43% of young labor forces in the world is made up of the unemployed, people are living in poverty. It is not always easy for young people to start on the current labor market”.

In addition, the report also confirmed that the global proportion of youth in the total labor force, whether employed or unemployed, also decreased over time, partly due to the reason that many young people still enrolled.

However, in low-income countries, millions of young people continue to leave school and begin working when they are still too young. According to the report, 31% of youth in low-income countries do not have a degree, compared with 6% in the lower middle income countries and 2% in the high-income country average.

The report also highlighted a gap existing between the sexes, the participation rate of young women is lower than that of young men in most of the region.

Moreover, the rapid change of technology, forms of labor and employment relations... requires continuous adaptation to the new conditions of the labor market to solve the problem of skills.

According to reports, giving young people the best opportunity to access to a job also includes investment in education and training of the highest quality, equipment young people with the appropriate skills in labor market requirements, giving them access to social protection and basic services, as well as harmonize the rules for all the young people who have ambition can get productive jobs whether they belong gender, income level or economic - social backgrounds.