ILO Global Employment Trends for Youth August 2010 Report

The global unemployment rate for young people, who is now defined as those within the 15-24 age bracket, has risen to its highest recorded level.

According to the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Global Employment Trends for Youth August 2010 report, the figure stood at 13% or 81 million young people as at end-2009 and is expected to continue rising until end- 2010 to reach 13.1% before falling back to 12.7% in 2011.

In Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the rate is expected to peak at 14.8% in 2010 before falling to 14.6% in 2011.

In South Asia and East Asia, the rates peaked in 2009. Its projected 2010 rates of 10.3% and 8.4% are predicted to fall in 2011 to 9.8 and 8.1% respectively.

 The ILO special issue on the impact of the global economic crisis on youth, which was released to coincide with the launch of the United Nations' International Youth Year, said over 36.4 million of the youth were in Asia Pacific, home to 56% or approximately 350 million of the global economically active youth population of 620 million.

This means that at end-2009, there were 12.8 million unemployed young people in East Asia, 8.3 million in Southeast Asia (SEA) and the Pacific and another 15.3 million in South Asia.

At the peak of the 2008-9 global crisis, the report said the largest annual increase in global youth unemployment was recorded, a rise of 1%.

The crisis period also reversed the downward trend in youth unemployment globally since 2002. In Asia Pacific, it was for five or more years.

The report also warned of the risk of a possible crisis legacy of a “lost generation” of youth who detach themselves completely from the labour market and have lost all hope of being able to work for a decent living. They will be from the poor in developing countries.

In many parts of Asia Pacific and globally, the report said young women faced more difficulties finding work than their male counterparts.

The 2009 female youth unemployment rate for SEA and the Pacific stood at 15.7% compared to 14% for men.  

Globally, the rates were 13.2% for women and 12.9% for men.  It was only in East Asia and the European Union that women fare better

The job market recovery for young men and women is likely to lag behind that of adults, the report added.

Young people are almost three times as likely as adults to be unemployed but in SEA & the Pacific last year the ratio was 4.6, the worst in the world.

Sachiko Yamamoto, director of the ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific said, "Young people are the drivers of economic development in a country. If they can't realise their potential the entire society looses out.

"It may seem costly to help young people who have given up hope of finding decent work - with a living wage, decent conditions and prospects for development - but not taking action is even more expensive because the investment in education is wasted, future tax revenue is lost and there will be pressure on social security and remedial services. So focusing national employment assistance measures on young people makes sense.”