The youth employment recovery continues at a slow paceaccording to a new report from the International Labor Organization (ILO), confirming that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected young people more than any other age group.
From the results of the report "Global Youth Employment Trends 2022: Investing in transforming futures for young people" It follows that the pandemic has exacerbated the many challenges faced by young people aged 15 to 24 in the labor market, suffering since the beginning of 2020 a much higher percentage loss of employment than that of adults.
It is expected that by 2022 there will be 73 million unemployed youth worldwidewhich is a slight improvement over the value recorded in 2021 (75 million), although there are still six million more unemployed youth than before the 2019 pandemic, according to the report.
The proportion of unemployed youth or who do not follow any educational or training program (young “nini”) in 2020, the latest year for which global data is available, it increased to 23.3%, representing an increase of 1.5 percentage points from the previous year, a proportion not reached at least for some time. 15 years.
This group of young people, in particular, is at risk that their opportunities and achievements in the labor market will continue to be diminished in the future due to the long-term effects of the increase in youth unemployment.
Women in inequality
The situation of young people is worse for women than for men, highlighting a much lower employment-to-population ratio. By 2022, 27.4% of young women globally are projected to be employedcompared to 40.3% of young men.
This shows that young men are nearly 1.5 times more likely to be employed than young women. The gender gap, which has shown little sign of narrowing over the past two decades, is largest in lower-middle-income countries, namely 17.3 percentage points, and smallest in high-income countries, in the which are registered 2.3 percentage points.
Regional differences
An uneven recovery in youth unemployment is expected between low- and middle-income countries and high-income countries.
These are the only ones in which youth unemployment rates comparable to those of 2019 can be expected by the end of 2022, while in the other income groups of countries, these rates are expected to remain more than one percentage point per above the value recorded before the crisis, as reflected in the report.
In Europe and Central Asia, the youth unemployment rate is expected to be 1.5 percentage points higher than the global average value recorded in 2022, at 16.4% versus 14.9%, respectively.
Although substantial progress has been made in reducing youth unemployment, whether it affects women or men, the effects of the war in Ukraine, both real and likely, can be expected to influence the results. .
The youth unemployment rate in the Asia-Pacific region is projected to reach 14.9% in 2022, the same proportion as the global average value, although there is wide disparity across subregions and countries.
Latin America
In Latin American countries, the youth unemployment rate remains very high, forecast to reach 20.5% in 2022. Historically, this unemployment rate has been higher for women than for men, although the crisis exacerbated this trend.
The situation is very different in North America, where the youth unemployment rate is projected to reach 8.3%, which is lower than the global average.
The youth unemployment rate of 12.7% in Africa does not take into account the fact that many young people have decided to leave the labor market altogether.
In 2020, more than one in five young Africans were unemployed or not following any educational or training program (“nini youth”), a situation that has worsened since then.
The arab states they have the highest and fastest growing youth unemployment rate in the world, projected to reach 24.8% in 2022. The situation is worse for young women in that region, with a 42.5% of unemployed women in 2022which is almost triple the world average value for young women (14.5%).
Opportunities in the green, digital and care economies
Both young women and men can benefit from the development of the green and blue economies (related to the use of ocean resources in a sustainable way).
As the report states, by 2030, 8.4 million new jobs could be created for young people through the application of green or blue political measures.
On the other hand, making specific investments in digital technologies could contribute substantially to the creation of youth employment.
The report highlights that, if universal broadband coverage is achieved by 2020, a net increase of 24 million jobs could be achieved worldwide, of which 6.4 million would correspond to young people.
Investing in the care sectors (health and education) benefits young people in relation to four fundamental aspects, in particular, improving youth employment prospects, facilitating the permanence in the labor market of young people with responsibilities families, promoting the well-being of young people by expanding their educational and training opportunities and improving their health care, and, as a result of all of the above, contributing to the decrease in the proportion of young “ninis”, especially in the case of Women’s.
The report also predicts that investments in the care sectors will facilitate the creation of 17.9 million new jobs for young people by 2030, both in these care sectors (14.4 million jobs) and in other sectors (3, 4 million jobs).
The report also highlights that taking action on the green, digital and care economies together, as part of a major investment push, would lead to a 4% increase in global gross domestic product (GDP). 2% and would contribute to creating 139 million new jobs for people of all ages around the world, of which 32 million would correspond to jobs for young people.