Anna Viter

Youth Employment Crisis in the 21st Century and The Ways to Improve The World Economy.

         Nowadays, the huge problem about recently graduates’ employment is becoming worse where young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults. Yet, there are not enough jobs for young people.

         In 2013, close to 77 million young people all over the world are out of work, more than 4 million are unemployed today than in 2008. More than 200 million young people are working but earning under 3 USD per day. Unofficial employment amongst young people remains spreading.

         The adolescence employment crisis, considerably intensified by the global economic and financial crisis, now requires governments, employers and workers to work even harder to promote, create and maintain decent and productive jobs.

Even if students are well educated mentally, the pervasive challenge to search for an appropriate job is becoming tremendously scrupulous for them. NGOs, NPOs, private and public organizations are willing to hire experienced interns and young professionals. However, not everyone is able to obtain a short-term employment even unremunerated in the end.

 

Education, training and skills, and the school-to-work transition

Governments should give serious consideration, as appropriate, to:

·       Improving the links between education, training and the world of work through social dialogue on skills mismatch and standardization of qualifications in response to labour market needs, enhanced technical vocational education and training, including apprenticeships, other work-experience schemes and work-based learning;

·       Arranging career fairs once a season in order to encourage students to apply more and to get acquainted with newly opened organizations;

·       Improving mechanisms for early identification of information about future indispensable specialists – current students and school leavers will be informed about foreseeable changes in a world labour market;

·       Developing skills strategies in support of sectoral policies that harness technologies and know-how and result in higher skills and better paying jobs;

·       Regulating and monitoring apprenticeship, internship and other work-experience schemes, including through certification, to ensure they allow for a real learning experience and not replace regular workers;

·       Supporting second-chance initiatives to facilitate the acquisition of basic knowledge and competencies both for those who leave school too early or never attended school and for the unemployed who want to resume their studies, with particular attention to young women and girls;

·       Supporting the training of trainers which has emerged as one of the major needs in expanding the skills development system.

 

Achievement of sustainable development

         According to the recent Summit G20 held in Russia (Saint Petersburg) in fall 2013 the ways to sustainable development were revealed. Here are some relevant of them:

1. In order to engage youth, we have to stress the importance of strengthening primary and secondary education for sustainable development e.g. environmental, social, and economic pillars to shape a sustainable future;

2. Enhancing practical and employable skills to match the requirements of the modern labor market by stimulating industry-specific training, including digital and language skills;

3. Education, employment and vocational training programs, such as the subsidization of training and entry-level wages, should be implemented and supported by public, private and civil society institutions. We need to support the implementation of dual-education schemes in order to increase the role of the private sector in the development of education policy; to minimize the current skills gap between existing and employable skills; and to reduce long-term youth unemployment;

4. Establishing a unified G20 countries job vacancies database for youth and promoting adolescence mobility. In order to motivate youth self-employment there is a proposal of empowering and supporting youth entrepreneurship by supporting Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) through soft loans and mentoring;

5. Maintenance of implementing basic financial education and entrepreneurship courses in schools and actualizing financial literacy standards. We recommend that financial institutions establish educational departments;

         Therefore, International Labour Organization should continue to assist member States in assigning priority to youth employment through the development. Based on available resources, technical assistance should be provided in the following areas: - development of national action plans that are integrated and time bound and supported by dedicated human and financial resources; - systematic collection of age and gender-disaggregated labour market information; - skills development systems that strengthen the links between training provision and labour market requirements; - comprehensive labour market programmes targeting young people, with a special focus on disadvantaged youth; - public employment services tailored to the needs of young people and to extend outreach to youth living in rural areas, including through partnerships between employment offices and municipal authorities, the social partners, social services, private employment services, where they exist, and civil society organizations.

         Following all above mentioned items the ILO should continue to play a leading role and partner with other international entities, globally, especially from the multilateral system, regionally and locally, to use all means of action to promote and advocate for decent and productive work for youth, and avert a lost generation.

ü                Global leadership on youth employment. The ILO should provide global leadership in the promotion of decent work for youth. In this respect, it should establish strategic alliances and partnerships to place youth employment at the centre of the global development agenda, including by advocating that specific youth employment targets are defined in the post-2015 MDG framework. The ILO should: - promote policy dialogue and foster coherence on youth employment issues; - conduct action-oriented research and knowledge sharing; - provide technical assistance to member States and promote specific and innovative partnerships for delivery of cost-effective interventions; and - promote alignment and coordination of employment policies of the United Nations and other multilateral institutions.

ü                Regional and national partnerships. The ILO should continue to engage in the promotion of regional and national partnerships for youth employment, including in rural areas. These partnerships should include the involvement of youth networks of employers’ and workers’ organizations and may also incorporate other representative organizations of young people that are active in the promotion of decent work for youth at regional and national levels.

ü                Advocacy. The ILO should raise awareness among young people on international labour standards and rights at work, employability and youth entrepreneurship, including through the establishment of networks for decent work for youth, use of social media and other outreach modalities. It should also monitor and report on rights for young workers globally.

         To conclude, the maintenance of the given suggestions would be more than useful for young adults with achieving decent jobs and places to intern. It can’t be mentioned that with the help of implementing in practice more than 50 per cent written above suggestions the likelihood of youth employment crisis will significantly decrease where the world economy will be gradually leveled up.

 References:

1.      www.ilo.org

2.      www.g20.org