Global Employment Trends for Youth -2013

This issue of Global Employment Trends for Youth provides an update on youth labour markets around the world, focusing both on the continuing labour market crisis and on structural issues in youth labour markets. Chapter 2 sets the stage with an overview of youth labour markets at the global and regional levels. Chapter 3 focuses on the skills mismatch in advanced economies. The chapter examines recent trends and identifies groups that are more vulnerable to mismatch, which include youth in general and young women in particular. Chapter 4 turns attention to the situation facing youth in developing regions where labour is abundant, capital is scarce and a stark duality exists between the shrinking but still dominant traditional economy and the “modern” economy. The chapter proposes a model for greater disaggregation of traditional indicators, using data from the results of the school‐to‐work transition surveys undertaken as part of the Work4Youth partnership between the International Labour Office and The MasterCard Foundation. Chapter 5 continues the examination of youth labour markets in developing economies, using the newly available micro‐data, but focusing on the topic of labour market transitions. New data on paths and duration of transition offer a unique insight into how young people transition from the end of schooling (or first entry into economic activity) to a stable job in the labour market or alternatively, remain stuck in less productive and less beneficial categories of economic activity such as unemployment or self‐defined non‐satisfactory self‐employment. Chapter 6 closes with an overview of policy options, which build on the findings in this report as well as recent recommendations made by the ILO in various international meetings.