Global Employment Trends for Youth 2004.
International Labour Office, Geneva

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Foreword

Young women and men are the world’s greatest asset for the present and future, but they also represent a group with serious vulnerabilities. In recent years increasing global unemployment has hit young people hard and today’s youth are faced with high levels of economic and social uncertainty. Compared to adults, the youth of today are more than three times as likely to be unemployed. All too often, their full potential is not realized because they do not have access to decent and productive work.

The link between youth unemployment and social exclusion has been clearly established; an inability to find a job creates a sense of vulnerability, uselessness and idleness among young people and can heighten the attraction of engaging in illegal activities. For many young people today, being without work means being without a chance to work themselves out of poverty. In addition, an individual’s previous unemployment experience has been proven to have implications for future employment chances. Yet open unemployment is only part of the challenge; even where young people are working, conditions of work may be poor. In both industrialized and developing economies, young people are more likely to have intermittent (temporary, part-time, casual) work and insecure arrangements, oftentimes in the informal economy with limited labour protection.

Giving people a chance to achieve decent employment early in their work-life would help to avoid the development of the vicious circle of unemployment, poor working conditions, poverty and frustration which, in turn, damages the future perspectives of whole economies. Since its inception in 1919, the ILO has aimed to improve the employment and working conditions of young people. Today, backed by a newfound sense of urgency at the global level in finding solutions to the employment difficulties of young people, the ILO is strengthening its commitment to facilitate, coordinate and provide technical guidance for an integrated programme of work on youth employment. A central feature of this work is the leading role of the social partners in the promotion of decent work and the eradication of poverty.

On the global level, the ILO acts as the Secretariat for the UN Secretary-General’s Youth Employment Network (YEN), created in the framework of the Millennium Declaration where Heads of State and Government resolved to “develop and implement strategies that give young people everywhere a real chance to find decent and productive work.” Youth employment is both an integral part of the Millennium Declaration and a key contribution to meeting other Millennium Goals, including those relating to poverty reduction. This report contributes to ILO efforts by defining the problems that youth face in today’s labour markets and providing an analysis of the current labour market trends of young people. It incorporates the most recent information available in order to shed light on the possible factors contributing to the increasing difficulties today’s youth face when trying to enter the labour force. The information provided here offers a concise picture of where decent work opportunities for young people are most needed around the world.

This report was prepared for International Youth Day, 12 August 2004.

Full text pdf format (ILO website)

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