First W4Y Regional Meeting
Decent jobs for youth should be at the top of African Development agenda, says ILO
Informality and vulnerable employment remain the reality for the vast majority of young workers in the region, says a new ILO report prepared for the Work4Youth Regional Conference that is taking place this week in Addis Ababa.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (ILO News) – With more than two thirds of young workers’ potential not fully utilized, there is an urgent need for countries in Sub Saharan Africa to create quality jobs for youth, a new ILO study says.
African countries have experienced incredible economic growth over the past several years. The World Bank projects that GDP growth in sub-Saharan Africa will hit 4.9 per cent this year, rise to 5.3 per cent in 2014 and to 5.5 per cent in 2015. But the quantity and quality of jobs for youth remains a huge challenge.
According to the report titled “Labour market transitions of young women and men in Sub-Saharan Africa”, the average youth labour underutilization rate in the region – which adds the share of youth in irregular employment, unemployment and inactive non-students – reached 67.1 per cent in 2012-13.
The study was prepared for the first Work4Youth Regional Conference, which is taking place this week in Addis Ababa.
“With 10 million young people entering the labour market each year, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa face an urgent need to create quality jobs that guarantee the necessary income and material independence for workers and their families. The low quality of jobs does not allow either the youth or the countries they are living in to fully tap into the region’s true economic potential,” said Azita Berar Awad, Director of the ILO’s Employment Policy Department, at the opening of the Conference.
Only around half of the youth in the region (53.2 per cent) are working, while only one youth in four works in a standard employment relationship with a written contract, the report says. Informality and vulnerable employment remain the reality for the vast majority of young workers in the region.
The study was based on recent school-to-work transition surveys (SWTS), which were carried out in eight sub-Saharan African countries (Benin, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia) under the ILO’s Work4Youth (W4Y) Project – a global partnership between the ILO and The MasterCard Foundation.
The SWTS household survey – which covered youth aged 15 to 29 – took place between 2012 and 2013 in the eight sub-Saharan African countries and in an additional 20 countries around the world. They will be run a second time in the same countries in 2014-15.
The results of each survey round will be shared with policy makers, the ILO social partners, and international and non-governmental organizations to help them develop national youth policies and programmes for Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Addis Ababa meeting – organized by the ILO’s Youth Employment Programme – provides an opportunity to better assess how statistical evidence can support the design and monitoring of policy toward improved labour market transitions of young people in the region.
Governments’, workers’ and employers’ representatives from the eight sub-Saharan African countries covered by the study, as well as senior officials from Ethiopia and observers from regional and international institutions, civil society and development partners, are taking part in the two-day conference.
For more information or interview requests, please contact the Regional office for Africa, Tel: +251 911 21 81 15, guebray@ilo.org, the ILO Department of Communication (communication@ilo.org Tel: +4122/799-7912).
African countries have experienced incredible economic growth over the past several years. The World Bank projects that GDP growth in sub-Saharan Africa will hit 4.9 per cent this year, rise to 5.3 per cent in 2014 and to 5.5 per cent in 2015. But the quantity and quality of jobs for youth remains a huge challenge.
According to the report titled “Labour market transitions of young women and men in Sub-Saharan Africa”, the average youth labour underutilization rate in the region – which adds the share of youth in irregular employment, unemployment and inactive non-students – reached 67.1 per cent in 2012-13.
| With 10 million young people entering the labour market each year, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa face an urgent need to create quality jobs." |
“With 10 million young people entering the labour market each year, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa face an urgent need to create quality jobs that guarantee the necessary income and material independence for workers and their families. The low quality of jobs does not allow either the youth or the countries they are living in to fully tap into the region’s true economic potential,” said Azita Berar Awad, Director of the ILO’s Employment Policy Department, at the opening of the Conference.
Only around half of the youth in the region (53.2 per cent) are working, while only one youth in four works in a standard employment relationship with a written contract, the report says. Informality and vulnerable employment remain the reality for the vast majority of young workers in the region.
The study was based on recent school-to-work transition surveys (SWTS), which were carried out in eight sub-Saharan African countries (Benin, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia) under the ILO’s Work4Youth (W4Y) Project – a global partnership between the ILO and The MasterCard Foundation.
The SWTS household survey – which covered youth aged 15 to 29 – took place between 2012 and 2013 in the eight sub-Saharan African countries and in an additional 20 countries around the world. They will be run a second time in the same countries in 2014-15.
The results of each survey round will be shared with policy makers, the ILO social partners, and international and non-governmental organizations to help them develop national youth policies and programmes for Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Addis Ababa meeting – organized by the ILO’s Youth Employment Programme – provides an opportunity to better assess how statistical evidence can support the design and monitoring of policy toward improved labour market transitions of young people in the region.
Governments’, workers’ and employers’ representatives from the eight sub-Saharan African countries covered by the study, as well as senior officials from Ethiopia and observers from regional and international institutions, civil society and development partners, are taking part in the two-day conference.
Key findings:
- The average youth unemployment rate in the region was 22.8 per cent, with the lowest rate in Madagascar (2.2 per cent) and the highest in Tanzania (42.0 per cent).
- The average female youth unemployment rate is 25.3 per cent compared to the male rate of 20.2 per cent.
- Only one working youth in four works in a standard employment relationship with a written contract.
- Half of employment contracts are temporary and less than one young worker in five is entitled to paid annual or sick leave.
- Less than 10 per cent of unemployed youth in the region has registered at an employment centre as a means of finding work. Most sub-Saharan African youth search for jobs through friends, relatives and acquaintances.
- Agriculture and services are the main sectors employing youth in the region.
For more information or interview requests, please contact the Regional office for Africa, Tel: +251 911 21 81 15, guebray@ilo.org, the ILO Department of Communication (communication@ilo.org Tel: +4122/799-7912).