Publications

BULLETIN 150
Labour training of youth

September-December 2000

 

(Full text available only in Spanish)

 

THIS ISSUE

A large proportion of the young population of Latin America and the Caribbean is in a critical employment situation. Young people in the region are not only hit by extremely high unemployment rates – in some countries twice those of the labour force in general. When they do have access to a remunerated job, it is generally in the informal sector of the economy, where wages are lower, the possibilities of occupational progress practically nil and safety and social security non-existent.

Starting from this diagnosis of very difficult access to work for young people in the region, a number of measures have been taken to revert the situation and improve their chances of getting remunerated jobs. Along these lines, several programmes of manpower training and vocational education have been implemented in Latin America and the Caribbean since the early ‘nineties to date.

This issue of the Cinterfor/ILO technical Boletín is devoted to the subject of occupational training of the young in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is meant as a contribution to the knowledge and understanding of the situation of the young population of the region, and the tools developed by numberless social agents to combat the scourge of youth unemployment.

It begins with an article drafted by Cinterfor/ILO staff members outlining the general employment situation of the young in Latin America. It is an effort to identify the main features characterising it and to assess the consequences of the segmentation existing in the labour market. It lays special emphasis on occupational training programmes as an instrument to face the challenge of idle youth, specially the situation of youngsters from social groups that find it more difficult to access decent jobs.

Secondly, there is an article by Rafael de Medina analysing various aspects of youth employment in the Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) based on a comparative study of household surveys in the sub-region.

An article by Dr. Dennis A. Pantin describes the youth employment situation in the English speaking Caribbean, with special emphasis on the cases of Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago. It also points to the probable future trends and characteristics of unemployment and underemployment in that region, taking into account a number of corrective measures that are being implemented to counter them. It makes a few recommendations about programmes and policies to encourage and promote employment opportunities for young populations.

The following paper, by Janina Fernández Pacheco, analyses the difficult circumstances faced by young women in Central America and Panama regarding access to work. She deals with the subject of youth employment (both sexes) in rural and urban environments, stressing factors such as poverty and gender prejudices in explaining the difficulties of young women in that sub-region.

Juan Carlos Hernàndez begins his contribution to this number of the technical Boletín by describing the status of the labour market and occupational stratification in Latin America, and focuses on what happens in Colombia, the city of Medellín in particular. He reports on the considerable training and educational deficit of the young population in that town, depicts the origins of the Paisajoven Corporation and of the Network of Training and Employment Promotion Organisations. He underlines the adoption of the competencies’ training approach by those institutions.

An additional country report is submitted by Jaime Saavedra and Juan Chacaltana, who portray the Youth Occupational Training Programme of Peru (Projoven), providing details of its target population, the training bodies implementing courses, their curricular contents, etc. They also enumerate the achievements of Projoven regarding employment and earnings of beneficiaries, and methodology used to gauge the impact of the project.

Jaime Ramírez, author of the following paper, focuses mainly on a conceptual frame of reference for alternative training and employment policies aimed at young people who are afflicted by structural unemployment. He considers that the first step in designing such policies is to recognise that those groups lack the basic training, psycho-social skills and occupational capacities required for successful performance in the labour market. From that diagnosis, Ramírez outlines the conceptual and organisational characteristics that he thinks youth training and employment programmes should have to succeed in the struggle against youth unemployment.

Finally, an article by Ernesto Abdala approaches the subject of evaluating the impact of youth occupational training programmes. He analyses the various dimensions that have to be taken into account in assessing programmes of this kind, and the methodological alternatives for the design of this polemic but unavoidable component of youth training programmes.

The following section includes a series of Notes or short documents on the topics of employment and training. The first one is Report V "Training for employment: Social inclusion, productivity and youth employment", a document intended to promote debate about those subjects at the ILO International Labour Conference of the year 2000. This excerpt of that extensive report centres on youth employment.

The second item refers to the High-level network for the promotion of youth employment policies. This is a global initiative supported by the ILO Director General, Juan Somavía, the U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan and the President of the World Bank, James Wofensohn, to further the employment of young people.

Legislation on the education, training and employment of the young in Latin America and the Caribbean is the subject of the third Note. It is a systematic summary of the legal frameworks and initiatives adopted by countries of the region to regulate vocational and occupational training vis-à-vis youth employment.

Closing this issue of the Cinterfor/ILO Technical Boletín is a section of reviews of books and publications. The first one is a review of Meeting the youth employment challenge: a guide for employers, an ILO publication intended to help employers and their representative organisations to implement actions promoting youth employment.

Secondly, there is a commentary of JOVENes: a journal of youth studies, issued by the Centre for Youth Research and Studies of the Mexican Youth Institute. This number is dedicated to the education and employment of young people and includes articles and contributions by authors from Mexico and other countries.

Finally there is a review of N° 14 of the publication Last Decade entitled Public youth policies in the ‘nineties: constant transition. Last Decade (Ultima década) is a publication specialising in youth matters issued by the Achupallas Viña del Mar Research and Dissemination Centre on Population Matters, (CIDPA), a Chilean NGO devoted to training and social development. Although this number is mainly concerned with youth policies in Chile – specially those connected with employment and training – some articles take a broader view and also mention what happens in that field in the rest of Latin America.

 

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