Youth Unemployment Rising, with Hundreds of Millions More Working but Living in Poverty

By ILO

The number of unemployed youth aged 15 to 24 rose over the past decade, while hundreds of millions more are working but living in poverty, according to a new report by the International Labour Office (ILO).

While the number of young unemployed increased from 74 million to 85 million, or by 14.8 per cent between 1995 and 2005, more than 300 million youth, or approximately 25 per cent of the youth population, were living below the US $2 per day poverty line.

The ILO report estimates that at least 400 million decent and productive employment opportunities - simply put, new and better jobs - will be needed in order to reach the full productive potential of today's youth . The report also says youth are more than three times as likely to be unemployed than adults and that the relative disadvantage is more pronounced in developing countries, where youth represent a significantly higher proportion of the labour force than in developed economies.

"Despite increased economic growth, the inability of economies to create enough decent and productive jobs is hitting the world's young especially hard", said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia. "Not only are we seeing a growing deficit of decent work opportunities and high levels of economic uncertainty, but this worrying trend threatens to damage the future economic prospects of one of our worlds' greatest assets - our young men and women."

The report emphasizes that today's youth face serious vulnerabilities in the world of work and warns that a lack of decent work, if experienced at an early age, may permanently compromise their future employment prospects. The report adds urgency to the UN call for development of strategies aimed at giving young people a chance to maximize their productive potential through decent employment.

Among the report's key findings:

Of the 1.1 billion young people aged 15 to 24 worldwide, one out of three is either seeking but unable to find work, has given up the job search entirely or is working but living on less than US$2 a day.

While the youth population grew by 13.2 per cent between 1995 and 2005, employment among young people grew by only 3.8 per cent to reach 548 million.

Unemployed youth make up 44 per cent of the world's total unemployed despite the fact that their share of the total working-age population aged 15 and over is only 25 per cent.

The youth unemployment rate was far higher than the adult unemployment rate of 4.6 per cent in 2005, rising from 12.3 per cent in 1995 (Note 3) to 13.5 per cent last year.

"Idle youth is a costly group", the report says, noting that an inability to find employment creates a sense of vulnerability, uselessness and redundancy. There are costs, therefore, to youth themselves, but also to economies and societies as a whole, both in terms of lack of savings, loss of aggregate demand and less spending for investment as well as social costs for remedial services such as preventing crime and drug use.

"All this is a threat to the development potential of economies", Mr. Somavia said. "Today, we are squandering the economic potential of an enormous percentage of our population, especially in developing countries which can least afford it. Focusing on youth, therefore, is a must for any country."