Tackling the problem of youth unemployment
Promoting youth employment and employability requires an
integrated effort that includes action in the areas of education, skills
development, the job supply and support for young, low-income entrepreneurs.
These initiatives must provide for participation by various stakeholders, from
the State to private entrepreneurs, including non-governmental organizations,
local authorities, youth leaders, the media, parents’ associations, etc.
A. With regard to formal education, regional data show that, on average, a minimum of
12 years of formal schooling are now required for access to employment
opportunities that will prevent poverty or offer a way out of it. The data also
indicate that the highest returns on education go to those who complete their
secondary and university education.
Although the countries of
the region continue to make progress towards expanding the coverage of
secondary education with a view to promoting a better future for young people
by enabling them to take part in production, in most countries the gap between
high-income and low-income groups in terms of secondary and higher education
coverage has also tended to widen in recent decades. Consequently, efforts in
the area of education should focus on achieving universal coverage, preferably
up to the end of secondary school, and on reducing differences in the quality
of the education provided to different socio-economic groups.
Strenuous efforts are therefore needed to ensure that current
education reforms give priority to keeping adolescents from vulnerable groups
in secondary school and to encourage more low-income students to enter higher
education in order to provide more democratic access to productive employment
in the future. In view of the changes taking place in employment styles and
career paths, it is essential to promote the use of computers and information
technologies (mainly networking) in schools in order to narrow the digital
divide. It is equally important, in conjunction with these new tools, to
develop higher cognitive functions by orienting the learning process towards
problem identification and problem solving, increasing the capacity for
reflection and creativity, enhancing the ability to distinguish between what is
relevant and what is not and developing planning and research skills, since
these functions are vital in an information-saturated world.
B. Professional training, vocational skills
development and support for young, low-income entrepreneurs are essential
and require greater investment in the quality and coverage of the relevant
programmes, a qualitative leap in adapting training and skills development to
new employment demands and technological change and the involvement of multiple
stakeholders, including universities, entrepreneurs’ and employers’
associations, financial agents and others.
The biggest challenge in this regard should continue to be vocational training coupled with the
provision of initial work experiences. This approach addresses two of the
primary causes of youth unemployment: lack of experience and lack of training.
The impact of vocational training should be maximized through the use of
strategies for targeting (aimed at
the most vulnerable youth sectors), decentralization
(assigning a more active role to the municipal level) and inter-agency cooperation (with the widest possible range of
training institutions, both public and private), taking a comprehensive approach (by combining training with internships and
support for job placement) based on labour
market agreements (basically between training entities and firms) and
supported by stringent monitoring and
evaluation mechanisms.
A national training and skills development system which
provides internships in businesses and links with employers, is technically up
to date and stays abreast of changes in the job supply could substantially
improve the options for young people who do not have a university education.
Another important field of endeavour is the provision of support in the form of
access to financing, information and networks for young entrepreneurs wishing
to establish viable microenterprises and small businesses, as a large
proportion of the jobs now being created in the region are in small
businesses. Young entrepreneurs should
receive particular support in the use of and access to new information and
communication technologies, since incorporation into contact and information
networks is, and will increasingly be, the most effective and efficient way to
generate value added in microenterprises and small businesses. To the extent
that young people are enthusiastic and quick to learn about these new
technologies and about the use of electronic networks, this asset gives them
great autonomy in acquiring productive knowledge, using market information,
advertising their skills, generating alliances and contacts and finding better
areas of specialization.
Vocational training and education should take a less rigid
approach, given the increasingly profound changes taking place in labour
markets. They should focus on developing cross-cutting
competencies, providing skills for occupational "families" rather
than for a specific occupation, promoting an entrepreneurial spirit and
teaching the basic principles and techniques of management. All these efforts
should aim at providing training in a wide range of substantive areas and
processes under the governing concept of transition
training. They should form training
chains designed to meet young people’s needs at four different stages: (a)
when they are still in the education system; (b) when they leave the system and
enter the labour market in search of their first job; (c) when they are engaged
in very low-productivity informal activities or are chronically unemployed; and
(d) when they have found an occupation and need to become integrated into
ongoing training chains to improve their assets and their labour-market
participation.
C. Action at the macro level is needed, both in
relation to employment policy (and its coordination with economic policy) and
in the regulation of labour markets. Many of the efforts made in these
areas may end in failure, however, so long as most countries in the region continue
to promote a liberalization-privatization-deregulation dynamic which restricts
employment, widens the gap between the formal and informal sectors and between
specialized and non-specialized activities, deprives people of social
protection if they lose their jobs, makes employment more precarious and
discontinuous and is indifferent to the dangerous and increasing correlation
between being “young” and being “excluded”.
Proactive labour policies must be based on an awareness that
job creation is sustainable only when the economic activities concerned are
competitive in the long term. In Latin America, employment has grown much more
rapidly in Mexico and the countries of Central America and the Caribbean (3.7%
per year during the 1990s as a whole), which have been specializing in exports
of manufactures, than in the South American countries (2.9% per year over the
same period), where natural-resource-based exports have been relatively more
important. The retooling of production activities and increased labour mobility
make it necessary to implement aggressive vocational training policies.
Public investment, productive innovation and macroeconomic
stabilization policies should place greater emphasis on job creation. This is
not only a matter of expanding job opportunities for young people. It is also a
means of incorporating new generations into the production system, which is
important because it is they who have the assets best suited to the new
production requirements that have arisen in open markets: more years of
education, which make it possible to increase the intellectual value added of
production; more familiarity with the new information and communication
technologies; and more flexibility in adapting to new types of work.
Post a Comment