Latin America: Quality Jobs Urgently Needed for Rising Generation

  •  santiago
  • Inter Press Service

Programmes to reduce the unemployment rate among young people in Latin America and the Caribbean should be a priority for countries in the region, said experts, trade unionists and government representatives meeting in the Chilean capital.

'This is a crucial moment for Latin America and the Caribbean. The region must act quickly' to integrate policies favouring young people's development, Guillermo Dema, regional specialist on child labour and youth employment at the International Labour Organisation (ILO), told IPS.

In Latin America, young people between the ages of 15 and 24 will number 104.2 million this year. 'There have never been so many young people in the region, and never again will they make up such a large proportion of the population. The demographic bonus is coming to an end,' said the Spanish expert, at the 17th American Regional Meeting of the ILO, concluding this Friday in Santiago.

Unemployment among young men and women is 2.5 times that of adults in the region. Some 6.7 million young people are looking fruitlessly for jobs. Most of those who do find work have low-paying precarious jobs in the informal sector or on temporary contracts, without social security coverage.

Monthly incomes for the young average 424 dollars, compared to 788 for adults, according to the report Decent Work and Youth in Latin America 2010, published in October by the ILO, a tripartite agency made up of governments, employers and workers. Another cause for concern is that 18 million young people, nearly 20 percent of the total, are neither studying nor working, the report says. Most of them are women who do domestic chores at home, reflecting the region's high rate of teenage pregnancy, most commonly among poor families.

But at the same time, young people in the region have achieved a record number of years of schooling and their professional qualifications are better than ever. 'Before the global economic crisis broke out in 2008, young people already had a hard time finding decent work, and with the crisis the situation is shocking,' Amanda Villatoro of El Salvador, who is in charge of gender and youth issues for the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA-CSA), told IPS at the meeting.

'No country in the region lacks a programme for youth 'employability'. But experience shows that a single programme is not enough,' Dema said. 'We need to move from youth programmes with limited coverage to national policies,' he said. These should combine, for instance, policies for training, job creation and social protection for the most vulnerable, he added.

The ILO's Agenda for the Hemisphere 2006-2015 proposes within this period to halve the proportion of 15- to 24-year-olds who are neither studying nor gainfully employed. But the prospects so far are discouraging, as between 2005 and 2008 the proportion fell by only 1.1 percent.

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