The slow recovery from the global economic downturn has further exacerbated the effects of the youth employment crisis and the search for jobs has become longer and longer for many ill-fated young jobseekers. However, unemployment is just the tip of the iceberg. Underneath this startling situation lie problems that are often left out in media coverage and the policy agenda: the quality of existing jobs is diminishing while informal employment has sharply increased.
According to the latest figures released by the International Labour Organization (ILO), there are 73 million young people unemployed in the world, a drastic increase of 3.5 million since 2007. “It’s not a good time to be a young person looking for a job and the prospects don’t look like they’re getting better,” said Theodore Sparreboom, ILO Senior Labour Economist.
With unemployment levels soaring, what happens to the rest of the young people who actually have jobs? Those who have a job feel lucky enough to have found it. Some are jumping from one short term contract to the next. Many accept jobs that are irrelevant to their studies or skills. Others who have no other means of supporting themselves are often under-employed, working in the agriculture sector and in fields or city alleyways of the informal economy. Persistent youth unemployment is just one dimension of the youth employment crisis. Meanwhile, low quality jobs, precarious work, skills mismatch and informal employment remain prevalent. Too many young people find themselves in vulnerable situations, even with a job.
The all-encompassing crisis
The youth employment crisis has left many young people ready to accept anything that is given to them and many employers have taken advantage of this. Take, for example, the buzz around the “intern generation”. Many young people today are jumping from one training or internship to another.
“Internships should always have a training component, since they are about on-the-job training,” said Gianni Rosas, the Coordinator of the Youth Employment Programme at the ILO. “If they use young people for duties that are normally carried out by core workers this can be considered as disguised employment, which can be pursued in labour courts.”
The importance of training has risen as young graduates find it increasingly difficult to land a job. But widely reported abuses have led to vocal criticism of trainings as a source of cheap and often free labour. “Employers in Egypt have offered ‘trainings’ in lieu of formal employment. During ‘training’, trainees do not receive a contract of any sort, no insurance of any sort and can be dismissed without any prior notice,” said Farah Osman, a young advocate from the Education for Employment Network. Young people are hesitant in voicing their concerns, because jobs don’t come by easy. Often, they are caught in a paradoxical situation in which they want to gain professional experience but feel the only way to do so is by working for free.
Informal employment, especially in developing countries, remains to be a developmental stumbling block. The informal economy is not taxed or monitored by the government, and work is poorly paid and unprotected. According to the ILO, as many as eight out of ten young workers are in informal employment in developing countries. There is a large number of young people in poor quality and low paid jobs with intermittent and insecure work arrangements. After graduating university, Joel Kakaire from Uganda worked as a marketing agent in a micro finance company. He started working without any formal contract. “We did this work for close to three months but without pay and none of us was willing to discuss issues of payment with the management, because of fear of loss of job,” said Joel. Due to the youth employment crisis, more young people are succumbing to unprotected work.
Not just more jobs for young people but better jobs
Young workers should be afforded their rights, even if jobs are scarce. While the public has recognised that unemployment can have severe effects on the economy, the diminishing of labour rights is sometimes being left unnoticed. This is particularly important for labour markets where young people are over-represented in informal jobs or trapped in involuntary, part-time or temporary work. Addressing the youth employment crisis is bound up with the over-riding issues of employment growth and economic development. However, it also has its own dimensions that involve more than just unemployment, which require specific actions and policy responses.
Experts suggest that comprehensive employment programs that promote job creation and labour rights are needed. “The best ones combine education and training with work experience and job placement support and also target labour rights,” says Rosas of ILO. “They include incentives for employers to hire disadvantaged youth, such as wage subsidies, tax reductions for a limited period of time”.
In countries where most young people are working in subsistence jobs in the informal economy, programmes that focus on literacy, occupational and entrepreneurial skills, as well as help to access credit, non-financial services and markets are most important, likewise with national regulations on labour right violations. The world today is not only confronted with the monumental challenge of creating more jobs for a large number of young people but better jobs for those young people who are struggling to improve their working conditions.
By Emanuela Campanella, Canada
Photo by Michele Lapini, Italy
