trade union training on youth employment for icftu-apro youth committee turin 27-31 may, 2005
TRANSCRIPT
Trade Union Training on Youth Employment for ICFTU-APRO
Youth Committee
Turin 27-31 May, 2005
Youth Employment in Asia and the Pacific Region
Sara SpantAssociate Expert on Employment
Promotion
The Youth Employment Network (YEN)
Contents
1. Who are youth? 2. Why focus on youth? 3. Why measure youth employment? 4. How measure youth employment? 5. More information needed6. Conclusions
1. Who are “Youth” ?
United Nations defines youth:
“Youth is people between
the ages of 15-24”
“Teenagers” are between 15-19 and
“Young Adults” are between 20-24 years
old.
1. Who are youth?
There is not “one” youth - people from different backgrounds, gender, age, class and ethnicity.
2. Why focus on youth?
- The youth employment
challenge
2. Growing pressures of youth population
More than 1 billion people today are between 15 and 24 years old.
85 % of young people live in developing countries
About 60 % of the world’s young people
live in Asia, or over 650 million persons.
2. The Youth Employment Challenge
The ILO estimates that 88.2 million young people were unemployed in the world in 2003.
This was 47.4 per cent of the global total of 186 million unemployed.
Young people are generally 2 to 3 times more likely to be unemployed than adults.
There will be 460 million new young job-seekers during the next ten years, two-thirds of them in Asia.
2. The Youth Employment Challenge
Youth unemployment can:
Impose heavy costs on individuals and their sense of dignity.
Permanently damage young people’s employability.
Lead to a circle of despair, exclusion, and poverty.
Undermine social cohesion, leading to social unrest and conflict.
Situation especially severe among already vulnerable groups such as youth.
3. Asian experiences
At the ILO/Japan Tripartite Regional
Meeting on Youth Employment in Asia
and the Pacific in 2002, a panel of youth
from Thailand described their situation
as:
3. Asian experiences
It is difficult for young people to find work in the Asia-Pacific region, yet they cannot afford to be unemployed.
The challenge is not just to find any job but to obtain decent work with at least a minimum wage.
Formal employment does not always pay enough to live on, which leads to exploitation of workers.
3. Asian experiences
Equal rights are particularly important for young people with disabilities or ethnic minorities.
Young people are under enormous pressure to support parents, siblings, and themselves.
Jobs are scarce and recruiters sometimes act as “gate keepers”
Education and training should be relevant to the labour market.
3. Why measure youth employment?
3. Why measure youth employment?
In order to design, implement, monitor and evaluate appropriate youth employment policies and strategies.
Identify the needs of the labour market, provide adequate training and career counselling for youth.
4. How measure youth (un)employment?
EY = Employed youthUY = Unemployed youth Youth Labour Force = EY + UY
Youth Unemployment rate = UY/YLF*100Youth Unemployment rate:
U(15-24)/LF(15-24)*100
4. Measures
The ILO Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM) has four measures for youth unemployment
4. KILM 9. Youth UnemploymentThe indicator consists of four
measurements:
1. Youth unemployment rateThailand (2003) : Male 5 %
Female 5.2%
2. Ratio of the youth unemployment rate to the adult unemployment rate
Thailand (2003) : Male 5.3 Female 6.8
4. KILM 9. Youth Unemployment
3. Youth unemployment as a proportion of total unemployment Thailand (2003): Male 51.8 %
Female 55.7 %
4. Youth unemployment as a proportion of the youth population. Thailand (2003): Male 2.9 %
Female 2.3 %
Youth unemployment rates by sex and region, 2003
7.0
14.6
16.5
14.4
8.1
13.5
15.6
14.5
5.8
17.7
14.2
17.1
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Eastern Asia South Asia Southeast Asia World
Total Male Female
Youth Share in Labour Force
0.0
5.0
10.0
15.0
20.0
25.0
30.0
World East Asia South-EastAsia
South Asia
Region
Per
cen
t
19932003
Youth Share of Total Unemployment
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
World East Asia South-EastAsia
South Asia
Region
Perc
ent
1993
2003
Share of Youth Unemployment in Youth Population 1993-2003
2.0%
3.0%
4.0%
5.0%
6.0%
7.0%
8.0%
9.0%
10.0%
1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Year
Perc
en
t
World
Eastern Asia
South-central Asia
South-eastern Asia
Ratio of Youth Unemployment Rate to Adult Unemployment Rate 1993-2003
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5
5.0
5.5
6.0
6.5
1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Year
Perc
ent
World
East Asia
South-East Asia
South Asia
4. Limitations
Unemployment is one dimension of the problem. A large number of young people are underemployed.
Some would like to work more hours, others might work long hours for low pay or below their potentials.
5. More information needed Length of unemployment «Discouraged youth» who have dropped
out of the labour force because they think no work is available or they face barriers and discrimination
Employed youth by status in employment – employer, self employed, employee, contributing family member.
Working conditions
5. More information needed Employed youth in part-time work and
temporary jobs Youth as percentage of migrant workers Proportion of employed youth aged 15-
17 years in hazardous or non-hazardous forms of work
Average earnings of youth relative to the minimum wage, median wage, poverty level, etc.
5. More information needed
Teenagers versus young adults Levels of education and skills Marital status Ethnic origin Family background Social groups
5. More information needed
Rural and urban Youth with disabilities HIV/AIDS
6. Conclusions Under-utilised human resources and loss of
potential. One dimension of the general problem of
unemployment and underemployment in Asia. High levels of economic growth in many
countries in Asia and the pacific is not enough.
The challenge cannot be solved without equitable and employment intensive economic growth.
More information is needed in order to design appropriate policies and programmes