Unemployed or Unemployable?
Unemployment among the young people is becoming a global issue this year with more than 75 million youngsters looking for job. What is worse – that so many of them are currently unemployed, or the fact that they don’t get the chance to ever find one because they lack experience and skills?
Last week UN agency ILO released their annual World of Wok Report 2012: Better Jobs for a Better Economy, which evaluates different countries’ performance on the job market since the start of the global crisis. According to their statistics, around 200 million people worldwide are currently jobless, of which 75 million aged 15 to 24. It is unlikely that the world economy will significantly grow in the next couple of years, so ILO don’t expect any improvement in the labor market, too. The global unemployment reached nearly 200 million in 2012 with its worst trends in Europe where the rate has increased in nearly two—thirds of European countries since 2010.
The most disturbing trend, however, appears to be the increasing youth unemployment and young people’s inability to compete on the labor market. Youth unemployment rates have increased in about 80 percent of advanced economies and in two-thirds of developing economies. Some studies say that in the Arab world youth unemployment rate is about 35%. Spanish unemployment rate is 26.2% and the youth unemployment is the unbelievable 55.9%!
The problem of young people around the world is that they enter the labor market graduate, with diplomas, but not skilled and experienced, both essentially needed for a job application. ILO report tells that 35 percent of the jobless youngsters have been unemployed for more than six months. In Abu Dhabi most of the young jobseekers have been on a job search for about a year, according to a recruitment show organiser. This means that this generation gets a little chance to gain some skills, prove itself on the market, and even a less chance to find a job in the future.
At the same time, governments show a little concern to the deteriorating labor market, although it is a large part of the economy in every country. Although subsided, the global crisis still affects all economies leading to an uncertain and unstable future for investments, industry, property and labor markets. Regardless of the high unemployment rates, in all spheres there has been a shortage for skilled workers. The global job crisis entered a more complex stage, but still countries avoid digging into the problem and only try to stabilize the current issues. Unless measures are taken soon, specialists say that most of the young people will be poorer than their parents.
