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