ASEAN countries team up to tackle youth unemployment

SEMARANG (ILO News): Indonesia, supported by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and ASEAN Secretariat, is hosting a one-day ASEAN Forum on Youth Employment on Monday, 13 May 2013, in Semarang, Central Java. The Forum is a follow-up to 4th ASEAN-SLOM Working Group held in Langkawi, Malaysia, in 2011. The Forum is attended by delegations of ASEAN countries: Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam.

The Forum provides a forum for dialogue and knowledge sharing among relevant stakeholders on existing initiatives, challenges, lessons learned and measures in tackling youth unemployment and development among ASEAN Member States. The Forum is also aimed to strengthen cooperation and collaborations among ASEAN Member States in tackling youth unemployment.

To strengthen the policies and regulations on youth employment, the Forum reviews the existing national policy and legislation framework of each Member State as an effort to formulate recommendations for further joint cooperation and programmes at the regional level. Country experiences from each Member State are presented and discussed in the Forum.

In addition, the ILO’s experts share their views on youth employment related issues. Issues discussed include the global challenges on youth employment, protection of youth rights through social protection mechanism and skills development as a means to improve the employability of young people and minimize the gap in school to work transition.

Currently 75 million youth unemployed globally and 40 per cent of them is in the Asia and Pacific region. The global economic crisis in 2008 has also resulted in significant increase of youth unemployment, 7 million more youth unemployed as the aftermath of the crisis. Globally, the issues has also been raised and discussed in many global forums, including the G-20 and the International Labour Conference (ILC).

For further information please contact:
Mr Tendy Gunawan
National Programme Coordinator for Youth Employment
Tel.:+6221 3913112 ext. 142
Email