The jobs crisis: dearth of decent work

When creating long-term policies to tackle youth unemployment, we must not forget that quality is just as important as quantity

While Spain and Greece are grappling with youth unemployment rates reaching over 50%, the figures are considerably lower in the Far East. According to the ILO global employment trends for youth 2013 (pdf) report, rates range from 9.3% in South Asia to 13.1% in south-east Asia and the Pacific.

But numbers are not comparable. In Asia and the Pacific, an estimated 93% of all jobs available to young people are in the informal economy. Most young people are forced into jobs for which they are over qualified, with neither social protection nor wage-guarantee. They work in perilous conditions and in the worst of cases suffer from abuses ranging from discrimination to forced labour, trafficking and sex trade.

Young people in Asia Pacific are three to five times more likely to be unemployed than adults. Typically, this is because they experience a skills mismatch between those they have acquired and the skills the market demands: over and under-education is something that needs to be addressed.

With vulnerability on the rise, the argument that ‘having some work is better than not having any work at all’ is all the more unacceptable. What is needed is full and decent employment whereby young people are employed, empowered and protected.

The scale of the challenge is daunting: how to create decent jobs while reducing poverty and increasing wages? The ILO estimates that globally and within the next 10 years, 600m new jobs should be created to address the needs of the 200m currently unemployed as well as those of the 40m new entrants to the labour market every year.

According to the World Bank, south Asia alone will add more than 1m new additions to the labour force every month for the next two decades. In a single country like Afghanistan where 68% of the population is below 25 years of age, this results into more than 400,000 new entrants to the labour market every year.

Addressing the challenge will involve the implementation of long term strategies that respond to the call for action of the 2012 ILO resolution on youth employment. First, promoting job-rich, socially inclusive economic policies; second, enhancing employability through education, training and skills; third, designing targeted labour market policies; fourth, encouraging entrepreneurship and self employment; and fifth, promoting the rights of young workers.

Of the many approaches the resolution gives way to, local economic development (LED) is a process which helps empower young people within their own communities. It relies on the idea that economic opportunities arise when different actors are asked to think outside the box with a common purpose. Involving the youth means investing in their creativity and dynamism for the sake of economic growth and political stability.

LED brings together government, the private sector and civil society with a view to identify and subsequently maximise their competitive and comparative advantages, including in rural areas. It is a forward-looking process that stirs economic growth for the sake of decent employment creation. One reason why it is particularly attractive to the youth is because for once, they have a chance at being involved in decisions that affect their lives. Their voices are heard not out of political correctness but because they are expected to make a difference.

The devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 left over 160,000 people dead in the province of Aceh in Indonesia. For survivors, the massive destruction meant losses of livelihood and a need to rebuild for the better. For young people, who are typically the ‘last in’ in times of economic growth and the ‘first out’ when crisis hits, it also meant finding their role in the reconstruction effort and securing their well being. The ILO helped launch an LED process involving them, which led to the realisation that tourism could be a determinant parameter for growth.

The LED approach can also serve inclusive employment policies, as an instrument to foster economic growth and to promote education and training. In the Philippines, the MDG-Fund joint programme on “Alternatives to migration: decent jobs for Filipino youth” provided training on LED leadership to young people and representatives of local government units. LED teams were established and institutionalised through the signing of an executive order and they were also able to develop a five-year LED strategic plan, articulating the vision, goal, and programmes of the provinces concerned. The initiative increased access to decent work for poor young men and women and resulted in 115 public-private partnership commitments to provide on-the-job training and post training services for 2,000 youth.

The youth employment crisis has reached unprecedented levels globally. In Asia and the Pacific, the immense scale of the challenge is due to the size of the informal sector and on the abundance of working poverty. Involving young people in preparing their future is a key underlying element of the 2012 resolution on youth employment and LED should form part of our response.

Admittedly, LED does not de facto lead to decent employment. What it does do however is provide a healthy foundation for us to realise this policy objective. The process, overseen in equal measure by governments, workers and employers, offers strong support for initiatives to be safer and fair. But it will only be as strong as the policies that it is associated with – whether these are macro economic and growth policies, active labour market policies, labour standards and social protection policies, social dialogue policies or labour market information policies. And whatever policies we deem it important to associate employment creation with, striving for decent work must remain central to our objectives.

Matthieu Cognac is a youth employment specialist at the ILO. Follow him on twitter here @mattcognac.