The Youth Employment Challenge

• Half of the world's population is under 25.
• 85% of youth between the ages of 15 and 24 live in developing countries.
• Youth make up 25 per cent of the global working-age population; yet their share in total unemployment is 44 per cent.
• Youth are more than three times as likely to be unemployed as adults.
• Insufficient employment opportunities mean that a third of the world’s youth is seeking work, has given up the job search or is working but living on less than two dollars a day.
• Many young people work for long hours, on short-term and/or informal contracts, with low pay and little or no social protection.
• An estimated 59 million people between 15 and 17 years of age are engaged in hazardous forms of work.
• 113 million young people are illiterate.
• Young people account for nearly half of all new HIV infections.

These figures demonstrate the breadth and magnitude of the youth employment challenge.
Youth employment is linked to the overall employment situation, yet it has its own dimensions. In developed economies, youth unemployment is often linked to the school to work transition, lack of job experience, the nature of the business cycle, and structural factors such as social inequality and poverty, market situation and discrimination. In developing economies it may be linked to insufficient growth and development, demographics, rural-urban migration and employability deficits.

Youth are not homogeneous. Particular groups of people, such as young women and men with disabilities, youth affected by HIV/AIDS, indigenous youth, demobilized young soldiers, young migrant workers and other socially disadvantaged youth are more prone to unemployment and underemployment. Targeted interventions, to capture disadvantaged youth, are necessary.

Failing to integrate young people into the labour market has consequences for youth, their families and communities and the future prosperity and development of countries. There is growing awareness among countries across the globe, the international community and international agencies of the importance of tapping this important resource and mitigating the heavy economic and social costs of youth unemployment and underemployment.

The partners of the Youth Employment Network recognize that policy-makers need to prepare young people for the labour market and prepare the labour market for young people. Strategies to address the challenges need to be comprehensive and include macroeconomic policies as well as targeted interventions and address the qualitative and quantitative dimensions of employment through a consultative process. Policies and programmes need to be based on labour market information and measured using well-defined indicators.