The issue of youth unemployment By Augustine Chan and Ray van zyl What is Youth Unemployment? • Youth unemployment, is the situation where young children or anyone under the age of consent presumebly around the ages of 2415 cannot find a job. • According to the World government, over the next decade there will be approximately one billion young people who will try to get into the job market, however half of these people will not be able to find formal jobs, leaving the majority unemployed, in poverty, or experiencing working poverty. This predicted rise in economic inequality and inadequete job opportunities has the potential to negatively impact a generatio of young children around the world. Youth unemployment: Causes There are many causes of youth unemployment, these can vary from financial crisis, skills mismatch, to lack of access to capital, etc. 1. Financial crisis, while the current crisis of youth unemployment is and was not caused by financial crisis alone, the recession has created and made existing problems in labour markets, education systems and other structures worse. 2. Skills mismatch, skills mismatch is a youth unemployment cause that affects young people around the world, while millions of young people are out of school ready to work, businesses need skills these young people never got, this may be due to poverty of educational issues, either way as a result, young people end up experiencing a difficult school to work tran sition, and businesse are unable to find suitable candidates for their positions. The same issue can also occur to people who are overqualified, and sometimes despite having the skills, children are underemployed, working fewer hours than normal workers. 3. Lack of access to capital, young children who want to make their own jobs by starting a business, however a lot of these youg people often struggle to find access to affordable loans or loans in general. This is mostly due to a lack of collateral, high interest rates make also make it difficult for them to repay their loans on time. According to the World Bank, 1%of loan portfolios of loan providers are directed at those under the age of 30. 4. Digital divide, in some low income countries, the skills mismatch is compounded due to a lack of access to technology or the internet. If schools are unable to afford the tools to educate young people in the digital sector, as a result, young people are at a disadvantage in the job market Youth unemployment: Effects • Youth unemployment is generally considered as a global crisis and can leave many long term effects. Having a significant ammount of young people out of work can negatively impact a communities economic growth and development, if left unchecked this can also have very sever social repercussions. This is due to the feeling of exclusion unemployed youth tend to have which as a result leads to social exclusion, anxiety, and a lack of hope for the future. Not only that, 90% of youth unemployed live in low income nations, and the feeling of the impossibility of a better life can leave millions of young people floundering in poverty and frustration, which as a result, skyrockets youth unemployment rates bringing fragile nations down with them. Youth Employment Example: West Bank and Gaza Around the world, Africa is one of the nations in which Youth Unemployment is a major issue, primarily due to the low gda and high poverty rates, while there are many areas and countries within the continent in which the issue is most prominent, none have shown more palpable impacts than in West bank and Gaza. Youth unemployment is a massive issue in West Bank and Gaza. In the past two decades, Gaza and the west bank have been one of the if not the country with the highest yout0h unemployment rate, in 2021, according to the world bank it is estimated that the youth unemployment rate was 40.4%, while there have been some subtle improvements, those improvements were somewhat minor, with only a 1 percent change between year periods since 2000. Youth unemployment affects women the most, The general female unemployment rate is 44.7 percent. This is twice that of the male unemployment rate, 22.2 percent. Youth unemployment for women is 65.9 percent, but only 36.2 percent for men. This gap persists even for those aged 25 to 34. In this group, female unemployment is 55 percent and male unemployment is 23.4 percent. As a result, women are more likely to be chronically unemployed. Over time, this only makes them less and less employable. Solutions, what can we do? • Education and training programmes:Initiatives or extracurricular instruction that target the skills gap can focus on anything from employability skills to job hunting and interviewing to entrepreneurship to vocational education (including opportunities in the green economy). Ideally, in the future, these kinds of education will be embedded into national curricula, tackling the skills gap. • Youth access to capital:For young people keen to get start-ups funded, they don’t have to rely on banks alone. Crowdfunding sites like Kiva.org and networks like Youth Business International give young people all over the world the chance to get the support they need to build their enterprises and increase their incomes. With more programmes like these being created every day, the future is getting brighter for aspiring entrepreneurs. • Skills Matching:The private sector, government and education systems need to start collaborating to determine what knowledge and skills young people should be taught in order to find rewarding work. Considering businesses are suffering from the skills mismatch, too, they need to take a more active role in promoting appropriate education and skill-building for young people from an early age.
