Youth employment and job rights as keys to economic recovery

THE International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Global Employment Trends For Youth 2012 indicates that since 2007, the global youth unemployment rate has started rising again. Nearly 75 million youth are unemployed around the world, an increase of more than 4 million since 2007.

Medium-term projections (2012-2016) suggest little improvement in youth labor markets. By 2016, the youth unemployment rate is projected to remain at the same high level.

ILO Director-General Guy Ryder called for programs that specifically target getting young people into jobs and rights at work which are essential to the world’s economic recovery. The ILO intends to make youth employment one of the priorities in the coming months, adding that programs offering youth work experience or training held promise and should be explored as one way of helping the 75 million unemployed young people find work.

Young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults. The ILO’s program on youth employment operates through a global network of technical teams at its headquarters in Geneva and in more than 60 offices around the world. It provides assistance to countries in developing coherent and coordinated interventions on youth employment. This integrated approach combines macro-economic policies and targeted measures which address labor demand and supply, as well as the quantity and quality of employment.

We greet the International Labor Organization, headed by its Director-General Guy Ryder, Executive Director Maria Angelica Ducci, Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia Susanne Hoffman, Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific Alcestis A. Mangahas, and its Country Office for the Philippines Director Lawrence Jeff Johnson in their commitment to create jobs and job rights especially for the youth which are keys to the world’s economic recovery. CONGRATULATIONS AND MABUHAY!