Global youth unemployment rate rises

The global unemployment rate for young people has risen to its highest recorded level, and is expected to continue increasing until the end of 2010, a new report issued by the International Labour Organization (ILO) says.

Youth unemployment stood at 13 percent globally at the end of 2009, equivalent to 81 million young people. That’s an increase of 7.8 million since 2007, prior to the global crisis.

More than 36.4 million of these 15-24 year-olds were in Asia Pacific, home to 56 percent (or around 350 million) of the global economically active youth population (of 620 million).

When looked at by sub-region this means that at the end of 2009 there were 12.8 million unemployed young people in East Asia, 8.3 million in South-East Asia and the Pacific and 15.3 million in South Asia.

The peak of the crisis period (2008-9) also saw the largest annual increase in global youth unemployment ever recorded - a rise of one per cent.

The crisis period also reversed the downward trend in youth unemployment that has been underway globally since 2002 and in Asia Pacific for five or more years.

Globally, the youth unemployment rate is expected to continue rising until the end of 2010 to reach 13.1, before falling back to 12.7 percent in 2011. In South-East Asia and the Pacific the rate is expected to peak at 14.8 percent this year before falling to 14.6 per cent in 2011.

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

However, in South Asia, the report cautions that demographic trends are likely to mean job market pressures intensify, as an average of one million young people are expected to enter the labour market every year between 2010 and 2015.

The report, ILO Global Employment Trends for Youth August 2010 special issue on the impact of the global economic crisis on youth is being issued to coincide with the launch of the UN’s International Youth Year.

The report warns of the “risk of a possible crisis legacy of a ‘lost generation’ comprised of young people who detach themselves completely from the labour market, having lost all hope of being able to work for a decent living”.

It also argues the true ‘lost generation’ of youth will be the poor in developing countries.

‘As more young people remain (or enter) in poverty over the course of the crisis, the hope of a youth-driven push towards development in low-income countries remains stalled,’ it says.