The total of unemployed youth in the world should be reduced to 73 million in 2022, two million less than in 2021, according to a UN report published this Thursday that warns that in Latin America youth unemployment remains very "high".
All over the world "there are still six million more unemployed youth than before the 2019 pandemic" and this group was the most affected by the crisis, indicated the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The pandemic has exacerbated the challenges facing young people from 15 to 24 years old in the labor market, having suffered since the beginning of 2020 a much higher percentage loss of employment than among adults, adds the 300-page report, entitled "Global Youth Employment Trends 2022".
Many young people dropped out of the workforce or never made it into the workforce due to the difficulty of finding employment during lockdowns or due to closure of companies due to the crisis caused by the pandemic.
The ILO warned that unemployed youth are "especially vulnerable to ‘scarring’, the phenomenon whereby their future performance in the working market will be worse than those of its peers, even when macroeconomic conditions improve again".
gender gaps
The covid-19 crisis highlighted the shortcomings "in how to address the needs of young people, particularly those of the most vulnerable"said Martha Newton, Deputy Director General for Policy at the ILO.
The person in charge identifies among these sectors those who seek employment for the first time, drop out of school or recent graduates with little experience.
"The most pressing need of young people is to have an effective labor market, which provides decent employment opportunities for young people who are already part of that labor market and quality education and training opportunities for those who have not yet joined. the same"he added.
The report reveals that 27.4% of young women are projected to work in 2022, compared to 40.3% of men.
This gender gap "has shown few signs of closing in the past two decades"indicated the organization, which warned that there is a great dispersion among rich countrieswhere the difference is 2.3 percentage points, and low- and middle-income nations, where it reaches 17.3 points.
With regard to Latin America, the ILO pointed out that historically the unemployment rate has been higher among women, although "the crisis exacerbated that trend".
In the world, the percentage of young "neither nor"who neither studied nor worked in 2020, the last year for which estimates exist, was 23.3%, an increase of 1.5 points compared to 2019, which represents an unprecedented level in 15 years.
regional differences
The global youth unemployment rate is projected at 14.9% in 2022 and the report highlights the wide disparities between regions.
In Europe and Central Asia, a rate of 16.4% is estimated, "but the current and potential blow of the war in Ukraine is likely to affect the results".
In "Latin American countries, the youth unemployment rate remains very high, and is expected to reach 20.5% in 2022"compared to 14.9% in the Asia Pacific region and 8.3% in North America, which in this report includes only Canada and the United States.
In Africa, the rate of 12.9% "hides the effect that many young people decided to withdraw from the labor market".
Within the regions, the Arab States suffer an acceleration of the youth unemployment rate, which reaches 24.8% and in the case of women it rises to 42.5%.
