jointly organised by the Norwegian Ministry of Labour and the OECD
20-21 September, Oslo
What are the main barriers to employment for young people?
The global economic crisis has hit youth very hard. But even in good times youth are more vulnerable to unemployment than adults. The High-Level Policy Forum on Jobs for Youth: Addressing Policy Challenges in OECD Countries, jointly organised by the Norwegian Ministry of Labour and the OECD, discussed what decisive actions governments should take to improve job prospects for young people.
The OECD launched in 2006 a review on Jobs for Youth in 16 countries (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States). Click here to go to the Jobs for Youth page.
Further reading
Video
Rising youth unemployment during the crisis: how to prevent negative long-term consequences on a generation?Working Paper by Stefano Scarpetta, Anne Sonnet and Thomas Manfredi.
Stefano Scarpetta, Deputy Director for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, explains what governments should do to avoid a lost generation of jobless young people
Tackle the rise of youth unemployment
In the OECD area, the youth (15-24) unemployment rate rose by 6 percentage points in the two years to mid-2010, to approach 20% (Figure 1). In the OECD area, there are about four million more youth unemployed than mid-2007. And in countries like France and Italy, about one active youth in four is unemployed, while in Spain more than 40% of them are jobless.
Prevent negative long-term consequences
The youth unemployment rate is expected to stay at a high level over the next two years and many unemployed youth are likely to experience a prolonged period of joblessness (Figure 2).
Focus on youth at risk
About 30-40% of school-leavers from upper secondary education in the OECD are estimated as being at risk, either because they cumulate multiple disadvantages (the group of so-called “left behind youth”) or because they face barriers to find stable employment (the group of so-called “poorly integrated new entrants”) (Figure 3).
