Global Youth Unemployment to Rise for First Time in 3 Years

The United Nations labor agency called for greater efforts to achieve sustainable economic growth and decent work, noting that global youth unemployment is expected to rise in 2016 for the first time in three years. 
Releasing its World Employment and Social Outlook 2016: Trends for Youth, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that the global youth unemployment rate is expected to reach 13.1% in 2016 and remain at that level through to 2017 (up from 12.9% in 2015). As a result, the number of unemployed youth is set to rise by half a million this year to reach 71 million – the first such increase in three years. 
Of greater concern, says ILO, is the share and number of young people, often in emerging and developing countries, who live in extreme or moderate poverty despite having a job. In fact, 156 million or 37.7% of working youth are in extreme or moderate poverty (compared to 26% of working adults). 
"The alarming rise in youth unemployment and the equally disturbing high levels of young people who work but still live in poverty show how difficult it will be to reach the global goal to end poverty by 2030," said Deborah Greenfield, ILO Deputy Director-General for Policy in a press release on report.
Calling for redoubled efforts to achieve sustainable economic growth and decent work, she also noted that the report highlights wide disparities between young women and men in the labor market that need to be addressed by ILO member States and the social partners urgently. 
The ILO goes on to point out that Global economic growth in 2016 is estimated to stand at 3.2%, 0.4 percentage points lower than the figure predicted in late 2015. "This is driven by a deeper than expected recession in some key emerging commodity-exporting countries and stagnating growth in some developed countries," said ILO Senior Economist and lead author of the report Steven Tobin. 
"The rise in youth unemployment rates is particularly marked in emerging countries" he adds as the report notes that in such countries, the rate is predicted to rise from 13.3% in 2015 to 13.7% in 2017 – a figure ILO says corresponds to 53.5 million unemployed in 2017 compared to 52.9 million in 2015. 
The report also finds that globally, the share of young people between 15 and 29 years old who are willing to move permanently to another country stood at 20% in 2015. The highest inclination to move abroad, at 38%, is found in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, followed closely by Eastern Europe at 37%.

Source : QNA