More youth to find it harder to get jobs – ILO

MANILA, Philippines – Young people across Southeast Asia, including those in the Philippines, may find it harder to get jobs in the years to come.

In a paper titled Global Employment Outlook: Bleak Labour Market Prospects for Youth, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said this will be due to spillovers from the euro crisis that could spread to emerging economies in Asia.

Below, Ekkehard Ernst, lead author and Chief of the ILO’s Employment Trends Unit, explains the results and recommendations of the study.

The ILO projects that youth unemployment in Southeast Asia and the Pacific could reach 13.1% this year, 13.5% next year, and as much as 14.2% in 2017.

It can be noted that these numbers are higher than the global average which is pegged at 12.7% in 2012 and 2013; 12.8 in 2014; and 12.9% in 2017.

“The rising unemployment rate among youngsters in these regions related mainly to the continuous crisis in the Eurozone. You see the spillover effects are related, to one extent, to trade and to the other extent, on the other hand, are related to confidence effects that will have an impact on these regions in the future,” ILO’s Employment Trends Unit Chief Ekkehard Ernst said.

Stimulus package for the youth

Ernst said the lack of job opportunities for the youth are causing many young individuals to drop out of the labor force, particularly in developed countries.

To prevent this from happening in regions such as East Asia and Southeast Asia, Ernst said governments should intervene and set up stimulus packages to help young people tide themselves over during “long unemployment spells.”

The United Nations unit also said governments must provide employment or training guarantees for young people, which can help them get off the street and safeguard them from future economic and social shocks.

“In other regions such as East Asia and Southeast Asia, what needs to be done firstly is that the situation of the labor market has to improve. Their governments can actually intervene in making sure that a stimulus package is being designed such as to avoid that people who have dropped out of the export-oriented sector will suffer from long unemployment spells,” Ernst said. – CAI ORDINARIO, Rappler.com