Global Employment Trends for Youth: ILO

A report titled "Global Employment Trends for Youth 2022: Investing in transforming futures for young people" was just released by the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Findings related to India:

Youth Employment Decline:

• Compared to its value is 2020, the youth employment participation rate fell by 0.9% over the first nine months of 2021, while it rose by 2% for adults over the same period.
• For extremely young people between the ages of 15 and 20, the situation is particularly dire.

Low Young Female Employment:

• In 2021 and 2022, young women in India lost more relative jobs than young men did.
• In general, the high youth unemployment rates in India raise the average unemployment rates around the world.
• The proportion of young Indian men in the global labour force is 16%, compared to barely 5% for young Indian women.

Online Education Gap:

• Of the 24 crore school-going children, just 8% of those in rural areas and 23% of those in urban areas have adequate access to online education during the 18-month school closures.
• The vast majority of children from socioeconomically disadvantaged homes, who have extremely unequal access to online resources, have essentially no access to schooling.

Learning Regression:

• When schools are closed, children not only lose what they have already learned but also there is a phenomenon known as "learning regression."
• In India, children lost an average of 92% of their language core skills and 82% of their math foundational skills.

Less Pay for Teachers:

• According to the report, teachers in non-state schools are frequently paid much less than those in public schools.
• Between one-eighth and one-half of what their peers in the state sector are paid, teachers in low-fee private schools in India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan are paid.

Domestic work is Very Informal:

• In India, domestic employment is a highly informal industry, with extremely poor pay and a high risk of abuse for young women and girls.
• Young domestic workers frequently report being abused, verbally and physically as well as sexually.

Findings related to the world:

• Young men are nearly 1.5 times more likely than young women to be working, according to the Employment-to-Population ratio (EPR), which shows that young women have a substantially lower EPR than young men do.
• In contrast to 40.3% of young males, just 27.4% of young women are expected to be employed globally in 2022.

Youth Employment and the Pandemic:

• COVID-19 Since early 2020, those between the ages of 15 and 24 have faced a significantly larger percentage loss in employment than adults, which has been made worse by the pandemic.
• Youth unemployment is predicted to reach 73 million globally in 2022, a little increase from 2021 but still six million higher than the pre-pandemic figure of 2019.

Regional Variations:

• It is anticipated that the recovery in young unemployment will differ between low- and middle-income countries and high-income ones.
• By the end of 2022, only high-income nations are predicted to have young unemployment rates that are comparable to those of 2019.
• The rates are anticipated to stay more than 1% above their pre-crisis levels in the other country's income groups.

Green and blue economies have several advantages.

• The growth of the so-called green and blue economies focused on the environment and sustainable ocean resources, respectively, was ideally positioned to help young people.
• By 2030, investments in clean and renewable energy, sustainable transportation, and other green and blue industries could generate an additional 8.4 million jobs for young people.

Employment and Internet Coverage:

• If everyone in the globe has access to broadband by 2030, there might be a net gain of 24 million new jobs, 6.4 million of which would go to young people.
• 17.9 million more jobs for young people would be created through investments in the care sector by 2030.

Recommendations

• The promotion of fair working conditions for all young employees must go hand in hand with investment in many areas.
• It is important to guarantee that young workers have access to essential rights and protections like freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, equal compensation for like-kind labour, and freedom from workplace violence and harassment.
• Young people should have access to healthy labour markets with respectable employment possibilities for those already employed as well as options for high-quality education and training for those who have not yet entered the workforce.