However,the key voice that was missing once more from this event was young people who are under employed or unemployed or have experienced it.
They also lacked those responsible for the education systems that need to be geared towards work experience--as that is the key thing young people are missing in the job market. However, this was one of the aims of this meeting--to identify those stakeholders and at least they are doing something... The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) held an Exclusive Event, “Breaking new ground: Partnerships for more and better jobs for young people” on 27 February 2012, from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m., at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
It was part of the preparatory process for the ECOSOC’s 2012 Annual Ministerial Review (AMR) on “Promoting productive capacity, employment and decent work to eradicate poverty in the context of inclusive, sustainable and equitable economic growth at all levels for achieving the MDGs".
As a young person who graduated in Ireland in 2009, I know what a recession looks like.
The National Youth Council of Ireland noted that the number of people under 25 emigrating increased from 15,600 in 2004 to 30,000 in 2009. As one of the young people who emigrated in 2009, I think that the numbers are too low. In my University class, only one person was still living in Ireland when I left in December. Most had moved to Australia or Canada.
According to the ILO's Global Employment Trends for youth for Ireland, in 2010, the youth unemployment rate in Ireland stood at an alarming 27.5 per cent, up sharply from 9.0 per cent in 2007. Yet even the scale of the unemployment increase understates the extent of the problem: youth participation declined sharply in the country during the crisis and there is a massive gap now between the current youth labour force count and the expected youth labour force based on pre-crisis trends.
This means many young people are either “hiding out” in the education system rather than face the job search or are idly waiting at home for prospects to improve before taking up an active job search. Had these youth been instead looking for work, the “actual” youth unemployment rate in Ireland could be as much as 19.3 percentage points higher than the official rate.
I am not part of the "hidden" young people who went back into education. I did take numerous full time but underpaid jobs (working about 5 at one stage), unpaid internships and I personally emigrated to get work experience. Getting work experience was definitely what I needed to get a decent job. I think that is the "innovative" solution for governments. Give young people experience and possibly revamp the education system to incorporate work experience.
I understand that the event held in new york aims to strengthen partnership between governments, the private sector and the philanthropic community in advancing youth employment and decent work. The themes to be explored will include issues affecting policy setting for youth employment and innovations for promoting youth employment.
To be honest, I think that the key challenges to be addressed are very different for the developing and developed world. In Ireland (and the developed world), the recession has made it an employers market and they use it as an excuse to under pay younger employees or cut the hours of their existing employees to pay them less. They exploit young people, the governments schemes for increasing work for young people (e.g paying employers subsidies) and the governments allow them by weakening previous legislation and lowering minimum wages. I worked for a company that told me that its profits were up since the recession hit as they could pay their staff less and got government breaks.
However, I am not naive enough to think it isn't tough for everyone....it is tough out there but we can't undo the work of the last few decades...
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