‘Global youth unemployment to decline to 73m in 2022’

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has projected global youth unemployment to decline to 73 million in 2022.

A report published by the ILO on Global Employment Trends for Youth 2022 – Investing in transforming futures for young people (GET Youth), yesterday, forecast that it would be six million above the 2019 level.

Presented by the organisation’s Deputy Director-General for Policy, Martha Newton, the report stated that the recovery of youth unemployment rates “is projected to diverge between low- and middle- income countries on one hand and high-income countries on the other.”

The document, which revealed that the COVID-19 crisis exacerbated the numerous labour market challenges generally faced by young people, said less than half of the global youth employment deficit in 2020 was predicted to be recovered by 2022.

The report provides an update on key youth labour market indicators and trends, focusing on impact of the pandemic and how targeted and sustained investments in the green, blue, digital, creative and care economies could support a human-centred recovery and improve the labour market for young people.

It explained that the global deficit fell to 5.9 per cent in 2021 and is expected to decrease further to 4.5 per cent in 2022.

This, according to the report, implies a projected youth employment deficit of 19 million jobs in 2022. At the global level, it said the recovery of youth employment lagged behind that of adults, who by 2022, are projected to recover more than half of their employment deficit in 2020.