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ITUC – PERC/ FES Conference ”Youth Employment: breaking gender barriers for young women and men”
Warsaw (Poland), 14-15 October 2010
Youth on the labour market in Europe – challenges and perspectives
Daniela Aleksieva, KNSB/CITUB
President of PERC Youth Committee
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Demography – key figures:
• Currently 96 million young people aged 15-29 live in the EU
• Young people aged 15-29 constitute 19.4 % of the total population within the EU (a fifth)
• Projected share of young people aged 15-29 in 2050 → 15.3 % of Europe's total population
These demographic changes affect families, intergenerational solidarity and
economic growth
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Global economic and financial crisis
Puts further pressure on the labour market opportunities for the young people:• difficulties in entering the labour market;• often forced to work in precarious working conditions and on atypical labour contracts;• rapidly decreasing chance for decent jobs.
This makes their job prospects depressing and does not allow them to be fully integrated into society
The crisis has merely exacerbated the year on year trend of increasing “flexibility”, which has mean worsening job opportunities for young workers.
• Young women in particular pay the price of job market flexibility. They suffer double discrimination – for being young and to being women.
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Young labour market in Europe prior to the crisis
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Data for the period 2000 – 2008 shows:
• Decline of youth labour force participation rates: - 2.4% in EU countries and -1.3 % in Eastern Europe;
• Decrease of employment-to-population ratios: - 2.5% in industrialized countries and - 2% in Eastern Europe;
• Increase of youth unemployment rates: + 0.5 % in EU and + 2.3 % in Eastern Europe;
• Youth-to-adult unemployment ratios ranging from 2.8 for the EU to 3 for Eastern Europe.
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• Even during the previous period of economic growth, most countries failed to create enough decent and productive jobs for young people.
• The most salient aspect of the decent work deficits of young people in Europe is precariousness in the form of temporary employment and the high incident of part-time jobs.
• The countries of Central, South-East Europe and the CIS face the additional burden of large numbers of young workers being over-represented in the informal economy, or under-employed and employed as contributing (unpaid) family workers.
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Young labour market in Europe and the crisis
(Key global and regional trends)
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Eurostat` data and ILO Report “Global Employment Trends for Youth 2010” show that the economic crisis has had a dramatic impact on the challenges facing young people seeking jobs.
Key global and regional trends concerning the labour market indicators for youth:
2009 → of some 620 million economically active youth aged 15-24, 81 million were unemployed (the highest number ever)- 5.5 million unemployed young people in EU
Global youth unemployment rate rose from 11.9 % to 13 % between 2007 and 2009, an increase of 7.8 million. - In Developed Economies and the EU - youth unemployment rates increased by 4.6 percentage points between 2008 and 2009 (in 2009 → 17.7 % - the highest rate that the region has seen);- In Central and South-Eastern Europe (non-EU) and CIS - youth unemployment rates increased by 3.5 percentage points between 2008 and 2009;
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Youth unemployment rate higher than total rate in most of the European countries.
August 2010: Total unemployment rate for EU-27 – 9.6 %
Youth unemployment rate in Austria – 8.5 %Youth unemployment in Spain – 41.6 %
Total unemployment rate in Austria - 4.3 %Total unemployment in Spain – 20.5 %
Compare to adults, young women and men are two to three times more likely to be unemployed. 2009 → the annual results for unemployment rate in the EU27 shows that for those aged 15-24 it was 24.2 % (5.15 million unemployed young people), which is significantly higher than the total unemployment rate of 8.9 %.
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ILO Forecast for 2010 and 2011
2010: the global youth unemployment rate is expected to continue its increase and to reach 13.1 %
2011:
- for almost all regions, slight improvements are forecast as compared with the peak unemployed year (2010);
- the largest decrease (1 percentage point) in youth unemployment rates is expected for Central and SEE (non-EU) and CIS;
- 0.9 percentage points decrease – for Developed Economies and EU
However, the projected rate of 18.2 % in 2011 would still be higher than was ever seen in the pre-crisis period (1991-2007)
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Young people are more exposed to poverty than other age groups
2008:
- an estimated 152 million young people ( or 28 % of all the young workers in the world), worked but remained in extreme poverty in households surviving on less than US$ 1.25 per person per day;
- in EU each one in five young people living at risk of poverty (share the persons with an income below 60 % of the national minimum incomes)
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Young women have more difficulties than young men in finding work
Global trend: the female youth unemployment rate in 2009 stood at 13.2 % compare to the male rate of 12.9 % (a gap of 0.3 percentage points);
Regional trends:
- in most regions, young women continued to be the hardest hit by unemployment;
- only in Developed Economies and EU were young males harder hit - the increase in the male youth unemployment rate between 2007 and 2009 was 6.8 percentage points compare to 3.9 points for young women.
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The ratio of young people working on temporary contracts or even without contracts is growing, and this is now regarded as “normal” employment in many European countries.
In 2009 around 30 % of young workers (15-24) in EU are employed in temporary work:
- 32.1 % - young people in full-time temporary work;
` - 31.2 % - young people in part-time temporary work
Figures about permanent work:
- 6.5 % - young people in full-time permanent work;
- 11.5 % - young people in part-time permanent work
In 2009 the incidence of part-time work (as % of employment) among young people in the EU is 22.3 %. Between 1/3 and 1/4 of those people do so involuntary.
Young workers are less paid compare to the adult workers
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Additionally challenges and barriers concerning education, employment,
inclusion and health of young
women and men in Europe
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The phenomenon “early school leavers” is decreasing at EU level, but still existing.
- Countries with highest values: Malta, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Cyprus;
-Countries with lowest values: Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland and Czech Republic.
-The average value of “early school levers” is now standing at 14.8 % in the EU with the following gender dimensions:
12,7 % - for women 16.9 % - for men
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The transition from school to work is one of the biggest obstacles in this employment crisis is the → with shrinking labour markets millions of young graduates have little chance of getting decent jobs. (Some begin working too early, other cannot enter the work force, still other get stuck in low productivity work.)
20 % of the young people aged 15-24 in EU combine studding and working.
Equal access to quality educational and training for girls and boys remains the best start to finding decent work. However, even where young women`s education levels are the same or higher than men`s, young women face more difficulties in the transition to working life because of continued labour market discrimination
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Young job seekers, particularly women, are often discriminated by employers, in terms of remuneration, career prospects and family and lifestyle choices.
The widespread use of “internships”, “traineeships” and “probation period” are not contributing to the achievements to stable, decent jobs for young people.
A key employment challenge is tackling occupational segregation of traditionally accepted “male” and “female” jobs, and to break the gender barriers in opening up professionals to both sexes
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A significant proportion of the younger generation are excluded from “ordinary” life, since they are neither in school nor in work, nor again registered as unemployed. (Large number of young people are simply being forgotten by societies.)
Young women are more often, than men are facing hard choice: work or family.
Young women, by a large majority, continue to assume most family responsibilities and resign themselves to accepting part-time jobs that allow them to combine family and work responsibilities.
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Thousands of young women in Europe do not yet enjoy the basic maternity protection guaranteed by the standards of the ILO, as the legislation of several countries offers only partial and limited guarantees. Young women are subjected to numerous forms of discrimination.
Young women and men constitute a major part of the migrant worker population, going abroad to find a better future. In most cases the young women work in the informal economy (babysitters, cleaners, house maids etc.)
Barriers in education, employment, inclusion and health, further combine to the problems in finance, housing or transport, make it difficult for young people to achieve autonomy, a situation where they have the resources and opportunities to manage their own lives, fully participate in society and decide independently
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How to fight the youth unemployment?
How is youth unemployment
measured?
How is youth unemployment
composed?
How high is youth unemployment?
What are the causes of youth unemployment?
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• How high is youth unemployment? – it`s naturally higher than the general unemployment;
• What are the causes of youth unemployment? – e.g. demographic effects; failures in the educational system; seniority rules in dismissal situations disfavors younger workers; employment protection is too strick; entry level wages are too high etc.
• How is youth unemployment measured? – need to focus on two groups: unemployed, not full-time students and discouraged youth
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How is youth unemployment measured? (1)
Outside thelabour force
Unemployed
Employed
All youth aged 15-24
In the labour force
Youth unemployment = unemployed
as a percentage of young people
in the labour force
Majority are students, but not all students are outside
the labour force
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How is youth unemployment measured? (2)
Outside the labour force
Unemployed
Employed
Unemployed, not full-time
students
Full-time students
All youth aged 15-24 Unemployed aged 15-24
Discouraged youth
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WO
RK
Discouraged youth
Lack of education
Lack of experience
Frictional unemployment S
OC
IAL
EX
CL
US
ION
Focus for analysis and action
”Job ready”
How is youth unemployment composed? W
OR
K
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WO
RK
Discouraged youth
Lack of education
Lack of experience
Frictional unemployment S
OC
IAL
EX
CL
US
ION
Subsidised employment
Good job seeking infrastructure
Different people – Different needs
Practical possibilities to complete their education
Guidance and motivation
Vocational trainingTraineeships
There is no one simple solution to the youth unemployment challenge. Different measures should be used to address
to the different needs of young people
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• Policy responses – depends on national circumstances and should be part of an integrated framework that promotes economic development and employment growth;
• Calls for combining policies for employment expansion with targeted programmes that overcome the specific LM disadvantages faced by many young people;
• ! Focus on comprehensive and integrated strategies that combine education and training policies with targeted employment policies for youth
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Our common aim:
Better integration of young people
within labour market
Stronger partnership between education providers, employers, social partners and youth organisations
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