Youth unemployment is commonly seen as an issue of staturefor all economies around the globe, irrespective of the stage of development ofthe nation. The United Nations has defined this indicator as being thepercentage of unemployed individuals aged between 15 to 24 years.
There arefour different methods used to measure youth unemployment in a nation. Thesemethods are as follows: (1) the ratio of unemployed youth compared tounemployed adults on a worldwide scale; (2) youth unemployment rate on its ownas a percentage of the whole youth labour force; (3) taking all of the youthpopulation and finding the percentage of those that are unemployed; (4) takingindividuals that are unemployed and measuring the amount of that total thatfalls under the category of youth. Globally, the rate of youth unemployment has beendecreasing. However, this fact is outweighed by the rapid growth of the globalyouth population. Due to this factor, it is evident that there will be highpressure on the youth to seek out jobs, an increase in competition and thusincreasing youth unemployment, unless preventative measures have beenimplemented. Furthermore, the global market cannot compensate for thisexponential population expansion, as jobs cannot be created at the same rate.This combined with the ever-increasing retirement age makes sure that youthunemployment will again increase in the near future.
The registered unemployedyouth population stands at around 73 million people worldwide. In light of this growing problem action has been taken bythe United Nations. In September of the year 2000 the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs) were established, goalnumber 8 relating to the issues of youth unemployment: “In cooperationwith developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent andproductive work for youth.” Furthermore, the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) have been in effect since January of 2016, goal number 8 relating to the issues of youth unemployment:”Decent Work and Economic Growth”. To follow through towards solving thisissue, the Secretary-General of the United Nations proposed a long-termsolution for this issue, which was to establish a Youth Unemployment Network.This was to be led by the International Labour Organisation, which specialisesin giving fair and equal work to all people, the World Bank, and is supportedby the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which oversees development and progressin member states.
This is a high-level policy network on youth unemployment.
