12th National PESO Congress
October 10-13. 2012
Baguio Country Club, Baguio City
Helping Filipino Youth to a Good Start :
Design of a youth employment facilitation
program
Kelly Bird
Principal Economist
Asian Development Bank
Overview of Presentation
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Situation of youth in the Philippine labor market
– some stylized facts
Evidence on the youth transition from school-towork
Lessons learned from international experience
with youth employment programs
MyFirstJob Project Design Features
2
(3) Unemployment in the Philippines is relatively
high
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
2007
2008
2009
Indonesia
Philippines
Malaysia
Brazil
Mexico
Turkey
2010
Thailand
(5) Shift in the demand for labor in the
Philippines
% point change in share of total employment
(percentage change in share of total
employment, 2001 to 2008)
4
3
2
1
0
-1
-2
-3
-4
Information
related
Sales/service
Production and
trades related
Farm and
elementary skills
Youth School to Work
Transition
• The better the links between school and the
labor market, the faster the transition from
school to work for young people
2009ADB household survey in Manila and Cebu
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500 households and over 1500 individuals (15 to 65
years)
Construct transition indicators of young persons
experience from school to work
Median time to find a job
Time path of this transition
How fast is this transition
Factors that influence this transition
Where do young find jobs
Ease of mobility between formal and informal
employment
12
Youth School to Work
Transition – Main findings
• The school to work transition is
characterized by a lot of uncertainty for
young Filipinos
• The transition to work is particularly
slow for those with high school
qualifications or less
• And for young females from lower
socio-economic groups
Youth School to Work Transition –
Median time to find a job

All youth – 2 years to find any job and 3 years to
find a wage job

High school or less – 3 years to find any job and 4
years to find a wage job

At least some college education – 1 year to find
any job and 2 years to find a wage job

OECD median is 1.1 years to find a wage job,
with Australia, US, Finland with less than 1 year
and Italy, Greece and Spain recording 2.3 years
or more
14
Youth School to Work Transition
– Time Path
Youth Employment Rates 1, 5 and 8 years since leaving school
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1yr
5yrs
8yrs
Number of years after leaving initial education
All youth
High school graduates
15
College graduates
Factors that influence the
school to work transition
• Education gap – statistical analysis shows that high school
graduates and HS undergraduates have a slower transition from
school to work compared to college graduates
• Age gap – teenagers have a more difficult time integrating in
the labor market compared to youth
• Gender gap – females have a moderately more difficult time
finding a first job
• Economic gap - family background also influences the transition
with young persons from lower socio-economic groups
experiencing longer transition from school to work
Where do young persons find jobs?
 Most (70%) college graduates find wage employment
 About half of young persons with high school education
find wage employment
 Teenagers (15 to 19 y/o) enter unpaid family work or
employment in private households
 Young women with high school education or less are
more likely to enter these precarious forms of
employment
17
Youth School to Work Transition
– Youth mobility
 The young person’s first job matters in influencing future
employability
 If your first job is in the formal sector, then you have a
50% chance of finding your next job in the formal
sector
 If you first job is in self employment, then you have a
70% chance of staying in self employment
 Temporary wage contracts are a steeping stone in to
formal employment for many young persons
18
Helping Young Filipinos
Get a Good Start in the
Labor Market
• High school graduates or drop outs
• Lower socio-economic groups
• Young females
Examples of Youth Employment
Facilitation Programs
• Job search assistance programs
– Public employment offices
– Outsourced to private employment offices
• Training programs for young persons having difficulty
integrating into the labor market
– Provisioned through training providers
• Wage subsidies for employing young persons at entry
level positions
• Public job creation schemes
Lessons Learned from
International Experience
• Monitoring and evaluation of programs is
necessary to allow for adjustments to
program
– Programs should be assessed on their net benefits
of the program
• Benefits = higher employment rates and higher incomes
of program participants compared non-participants
• Costs = admin costs of programs and risks of
employment displacement
Lessons Learned from
International Experience
• Programs with a mix of strategies tend to
perform better than programs with a main
strategy
– Programs that include job search assistance,
counseling, vocational training and wage subsidies
tend to perform better in terms of employment
rates and higher incomes over the medium term
– Example: Joven program in Latin America
–
JobStart in UK
Lessons Learned from
International Experience
• Programs with well defined target group
tend to do better than general targeting
– High school graduates or drop outs, socioeconomic disadvantaged groups etc
Lessons Learned from
International Experience
• Programs with activation strategies tend
to do better
– Encourage young persons to job search
early in the unemployment spell
– Active monitoring of job search activities
and linked to benefits
Lessons Learned from
International Experience
• Readiness of public employment offices
– Good governance structure
– Well trained staff
– Well resourced
Proposed MyFirstJob Pilot Project
Background:
 Collaboration between ADB and DOLE
 MyFirstJob draws on successful youth employment
programs in Latin America (i.e., Joven program in
Chile), Canada, UK, and several European countries.
 MyFirstJob is at the design stage and we aim to pilot
in 2013
 Executing agency is Department of labor and
Employment
 Implemented through selected PESOs
 Funded through a grant from Canada International
Development Agency 26
MyFirstJob
Main features
• Counseling services provided to participants in the
program
• Grants for vocational education (4 weeks and 6
months)
• Grants/wage subsidies for job internships with public
and private sector employers (up to 12 months)
• M&E framework – LM performance of the 1,500
beneficiaries and a similar sized control group will be
evaluated
– Results will inform GOP on a larger pilot.
THANK YOU