World Bank seeks global action on youth unemployment

Global economy needs 600 million jobs

The alarming rate of joblessness and poor capacity enhancement for youths desires urgent global attention, going by the latest report from the World Bank.

Indeed, the apex bank is worried that in the coming decades, global growth would depend on today’s young people, who are apparently not getting the opportunity to be developed through gainful employment.

It was however revealed that about one-third of the world’s 1.8 billion young people are currently in neither employment, education or training.

Of the one billion, more youth will enter the labour market in the next decade, while only 40 percent are expected to be able to get jobs that currently exist.

Besides, the global economy is estimated to need about 600 million jobs over the next 10 years and five million jobs each month.

According to the report, reversing the youth employment crisis is a pressing global priority and the socio-economic cost of inaction is high.

The inaugural report, entitled Toward Solutions for Youth Employment: A 2015 Baseline Report, was released by Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE) – a multi-stakeholder global coalition established to improve youth access to work opportunities.

The coalition is a partnership started by the World Bank Group, Plan International, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), Youth Business International (YBI), RAND, Accenture, and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

S4YE Coalition Manager, Matt Hobson, said: “Young people account for 40 per cent of the world’s population (the largest youth generation in human history) but they are disproportionately affected by unemployment. This is a persistent problem. Approximately 30 per cent of young people are not in employment, training or education, and around the world, young women are worse off. We need to act now, and we need to act together if we are going to realize the significant opportunities presented by this many young people today,”

While circumstances differ in various regions, the report added that, the issues remain the same – the world’s youth are unable to find sustainable productive work and this contributes to inequality, spurs social tension, and poses a risk to present and future national and global prosperity and security.

The report also highlighted specific population – young women, youth in conflict-affected and fragile states, as well as rural and urban youth – that requires dedicated attention.

Hobson added: “The report showed that young people are by inclination more entrepreneurial than adults -and we now know that of all the interventions governments, private sector and civil society implement to address youth employment, providing support to early entrepreneurs is the most effective.

“The good news is that experience and evidence increasingly indicate that we already have some of the policy and programme responses in our arsenal to tackle youth employment now,” he said.