The Future of Work Podcast

-Hello, and welcome to another edition of the ILO's Future of Work podcast.

I'm Sophy Fisher.

Today we're going to focus on youth employment,

because a recent ILO report has produced some findings that,

at least initially, seem strange.

Despite a slight improvement in the headline youth employment figures,

the report has found that unemployment and job insecurity

are a growing cause of anxiety and worry among young people.

The report also highlights a trend that might seem a little technical

but is in fact something we should all be concerned about,

and that's the rise in the number of NEETs.

That's young people who are not in employment,

education or training.

What is the picture for young people

who either recently joined or are trying to join the world of work?

Now, to talk about this subject today, I have three guests.

First is Sara Elder,

who is head of the ILO's Employment Analysis

and Economic Policies Unit.

She was also a lead author of the recent report,

Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024, Decent Work, Brighter Futures.

Sara, welcome.

Thank you, Sophy.

-Morgan Williams is an intern for the ILO's Research Department.

Morgan has also contributed to Future of Work topics at the ILO,

the OECD,

and as a Youth 7 delegate.

For those of you who don't know,

Youth 7 is the official youth engagement group of the G7.

Tino Gwenyaya is also an intern at the ILO's Sectoral Policies Department,

and his work focuses on a number of areas,

including the impact of AI in the workplace

and social dialogue and collective bargaining

in some services sectors,

such as healthcare and arts and culture.

Tino and Morgan, welcome to you two.

Thank you so much for joining us.

-Thank you. -Yes, thank you for having us.

-Great. Okay. Well, let's start with the report.

Sara,

the numbers showed a full recovery

in youth employment since the pandemic around about 2020 and '21,

and yet, young people are pretty downbeat about their prospects.

What's going on here?

-That's right, Sophy, and you picked up on the contradictions

that run throughout the report.

Yes, we have some very good news, which is that the pandemic is behind us,

and youth unemployment now at 13%

is as low as it's been in 15 years.

That's pretty spectacular,

but behind this very rosy picture, I think we see some nuances

that are very important for us.

One being that this recovery is not universal.

Youth unemployment numbers have continued to rise

in some regions of the world like East Asia,

Arab states, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific,

and also that

even if jobs are seemingly plentiful, decent jobs still remain very, very few.

-By which, decent jobs, you mean decent jobs

that have some sort of stability, some sort of permanence,

and some sort of social safety net?

-Absolutely, and in terms of who gets these jobs,

it's extremely unequal across the globe.

We have in high-income countries,

four and five young persons are working in a regular paid job.

In a low-income country, this share is one in five.

It's really, the difference is outstanding.

-What you've got here is potentially a widening of the fissure

between young people in higher-income countries

and those who are born and educated in lower-income countries.

-Indeed.

The irony is that the bulk of the population remains

in the developing countries,

so when we think about the future,

it really should be about

making opportunities better for young people where they are.

-Yes, because of the nature of demographic changes.

Right. Let's just move on briefly to this question of NEETs,

young people who are not in employment, education or training.

Is this a global matter?

Is it associated more with developed or developing countries,

specific groups of young people

divided by gender, divided by ethnic background?

Tell us a bit more about it.

-Yes, it's a very complex picture.

Globally, the share is 20%,

so one in five young people across the globe

is neither in employment or education,

but it varies widely.

The share in North America is 10%.

The share in Arab states is 40%.

It becomes really very much a gender story

when two in three young NEETs across the globe are young women.

That's what's driving the high shares in Arab states and South Asia.

It's primarily young women that are still excluded

from the education system and from the labor market.

-Is this a temporary effect?

If you miss the jump

or you don't make a smooth jump from statutory education into employment,

is that just a one-off problem or does it have a lasting legacy?

-Some of our statistics show that there is indeed a legacy.

If you start out as a NEET, you might remain a NEET,

you might never join the labor market.

Again, this goes back to the story of the gender story.

Young women just simply by social norms are excluded

and will be rather looking after the household.

Other statistics in the developed world

show that it is indeed harder.

Once you start out having lesser education or having a long spell of unemployment,

it is indeed harder than to get back

into the labor market and to reach the same level as those

who moved more smoothly.

-Okay, let's turn this over to Tino and Morgan.

You are, of course, both currently working for the ILO,

albeit as interns.

Tell us a little bit about

the issues you have faced in actually getting out of education

and getting into the world of work.

Tino, let me start with you.

-Yes, they are highlighted in the report.

I think the report reflects the realities of many people like myself.

Finding work after being educated remains a challenge,

but also finding work that is decent and permanent

that also pays a living wage,

that remains a challenge for many people.

-Morgan, when you first started looking for work experience,

what were the issues that you faced?

-I think a prime issue that we face, especially as Sara highlighted it,

in the Global North,

has to do with having experience just to even get an internship.

It's very difficult to make that first step

because now the standards are getting higher and higher

just to reach the base level.

Now we have a lot of people, especially in North America,

as the report highlighted,

that are overqualified for the jobs that they're doing,

overeducated

because the standards to get a job is much higher.

Now we're seeing for an entry-level job,

you may need three or five years of experience to do a job

that someone just out of their bachelor's or master's degree can do.

-Sara, this business of being overqualified for jobs,

is it only in developed countries like the United States?

I've heard of it in places like India as well.

-It's a big problem.

What we find in the report,

we mentioned that there's, again, good news in the fact

that more young people are able to get educated

and there's a clear gain here.

Yet what happens is in countries

where there are not enough higher-level jobs,

young people have to take what is available,

which means they take jobs for which they are overqualified.

It's really a matter of the economy not keeping up

and not able to produce the number of higher level jobs

that the educated young people would want.

-Tino, has that been your experience too

for yourself and basically your friends and colleagues?

-Yes, absolutely. Where I come from in sub-Saharan Africa,

generally there is high levels of informality,

I think, compared to most parts of the world.

That means a lot of young people are rather going more

into the informal sector than the formal sector

when they exit there.

It's basically the result of the lack of employment opportunities,

but also because the informal sector maybe has got more in terms of control.

You are able to control your outcomes, your income,

and it might actually give much more secure forms

of employment compared to formal employment in some instances.

-Really? -Yes.

-Tell us more.

-There are also high levels-- I think the report does highlight that,

well, not necessarily the report, but there has been some growth,

particularly in the services sector.

A lot of the jobs in the service sectors

do not necessarily guarantee long-term employment.

That means

you are much more likely to be better off

than being in a situation in which you control your socioeconomic activities

and also your income out of that process.

It's just a mismatch

between the formal and the informal sectors

for many young people,

based on the reality that there aren't also enough jobs

in the formal sector,

and the jobs that are already there are less secure.

-Sara, picking up on what Tino said, there is an idea

that employment is in fact a phenomenon of rich countries,

because in Sub-Saharan Africa and countries like that,

you can't afford to be unemployed as a young person,

you have to do something, which means the informal sector.

Is that true?

-That's right and that's exactly what the statistics show.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, youth unemployment is actually quite low.

I think it's 8%,

which means you are basically facing a situation of full employment,

but there are very, very few of these jobs

that meet the expectations of an educated young person.

The queue for a formal sector job is longer and longer and longer.

You are competing amongst your peers to get that job,

and if you don't manage to get that job, you take up the informal sector job

that is offered to you.

These are the temporary jobs that Tino mentioned.

-For you too, a decade or so ago, it would have been normal for young people

of your age category to start thinking about maybe buying property,

taking on a loan, a mortgage for that, perhaps getting married,

perhaps having kids,

taking on the responsibilities of adulthood,

mature adulthood, rather than young adulthood.

Do you find your inability to find

decent and stable employment is affecting your decisions

and those of your friends on those matters?

-Definitely.

I think it's certainly the case

when you think about starting a family as a woman.

When you have temporary work, you have no guarantee

that you're going to have work again after you have that child.

Although I'm not quite at that stage where I'm ready to have kids now,

I do think in five years or so, will it still be the case

that I'm in this cycle of temporary work, unsure if I'm able to support a family?

-Tino, would you agree?

-Absolutely.

I have to mention because the report does not also a post-COVID recovery.

What we've also seen, and I think the report acknowledges that

there is a rise in the cost of living for many people.

In sub-Saharan Africa, that has been the case.

Certainly in South Africa,

where a lot of younger people are finding it difficult to afford a house

or to afford really challenges

associated with meeting the basic cost of living.

-Right.

This moves us neatly on to the other issue that was raised in the report,

which is this question of rising anxiety,

which is rather strange.

Morgan and Tino, what do you think this is based on?

Is this simply based on

the difficulties of getting the kind of jobs we've been talking about,

or is it based on the broader social and economic context?

Thinking of conflict, climate change,

what we're seeing is happening to democratic institutions,

and the ups and downs of the economic environment.

Where do you think it comes from?

-I certainly think economic factors play a big role.

In the United States, in particular, I think

loans, taking on student loans, taking on mortgages,

taking on that debt creates a lot of anxiety

that's going to exist for a long term,

10, 20, even 30 years into your career.

On top of that, I think that's something that wasn't highlighted in the report,

but makes a impact on our anxiety

is the prevalence of technology and social media,

constantly comparing ourselves to others,

having algorithms that are digging us deeper into holes

that are affecting how we think,

how we think of ourselves in comparison to others as well.

-I absolutely agree.

I would add also just the changes in the world of work

associated with being out, for example,

no jobs that are insecure,

certainly have a role to play

in the mental health of many young people today.

I think that can be compared to earlier generations

where jobs were much more secure,

where incomes maybe could have been higher

and there wasn't intense work.

That's for historians to compare.

Certainly, I think that does play a role in terms of

the mental health of young people across the world in general.

It's not just in the developed countries,

also in Africa,

young people also face those kinds of mental health challenges

on a day to day basis.

-Yes, and of course, your generation is going to have to deal with

the workplace impact of AI,

which is of course, something that none of us know

how it's going to play out except that it's going to have a significant impact.

Do your friends talk about this, your cohort?

-Yes, it's something that is of concern.

Though maybe much remains to be seen in terms of the impact

on working conditions or maybe improving work

that might either improve work or make it a bit more challenging,

therefore worsening the conditions.

I think it's certainly something

that occupies, preoccupies the mindsets of many young people today.

-Yes, I certainly agree with Tino

and I think it's still yet to be seen

what the impact on working conditions and wages will be.

I think a conversation that I'm having a lot with friends

is the impact of AI on recruitment and hiring,

particularly video-based AI interviews, AI screening

that are often marketed as tools to increase diversity,

but there are actually a lot of risks associated with these tools

if they're not implemented appropriately.

My concerns are how are governments and employers going to implement policies

that ensure that these algorithms are promoting diversity

and not perpetuating existing systematized biases?

Perhaps this could be through algorithmic audits

or impact assessments,

but it's definitely a topic of conversation

that I've had with friends searching for work.

-Yes, because an algorithm is only as good as its programming, right?

-That's right. -The programming reflects the past

and not the future.

-Indeed.

-Okay, let's not leave this on too depressing a note.

Let's try and be positive and look at the what can be done

and what should be done.

Sara, you're on the policy side.

Let's start with you.

-Okay, well, first, let me just say,

I'm fascinated listening to Morgan and Tino,

and it really does remind us

there's a world of worry on their shoulders.

-As they try to enter the world of work. -As they try to enter the world of work

and move into the stage of financial independence.

There's a lot to worry about,

which means that it's on the part of us

as the institutions to keep the hope alive and to remind you

that you are part of the solution.

As young people, you can empower yourselves.

You can vote.

You can remain politically engaged.

The institutions themselves need to make sure

that you are heard and brought on board when it comes to policy makings.

Now, governments are already doing a lot.

We recognize, governments do recognize

that youth employment is a top policy concern,

but they can be doing a lot more.

Oftentimes, the solution set falls a bit more on

what I would call the supply side, the skilling of young people,

which puts the burden back on young people.

I think we need to remember

that the burden is on the side of governments and the economy

to continue to grow and to continue to invest in the type of jobs

that young people want.

Employers need to listen to you

to make sure that they understand what is the type of job

that you are interested in,

that they're able to recreate a model of existence

that is able to make sure that you feel valued, that you feel heard,

that you receive the wages that you need.

Therefore,

they will be preventing the high labor turnover

that is a huge factor in their loss of productivity.

We need to get back into this model of producing good jobs.

Employers have a big role to play in there,

labor units have a role to play in there, and governments as well.

-Yes, and educational institutions.

It's not just on governments, it's on the whole range.

-Absolutely.

-Tino and Morgan, if there was something that could be done,

practical or policy,

to help you and your cohort

find decent and productive and work that had a future,

can you think of one or two things

that would help particularly?

-I think, as Sara has mentioned,

there has to be a lot of investments in education

and also aligning that with the broader economic needs.

I think that there has to be a lot of that.

I'm just speaking in terms of where I come from,

that a lot of young people need really the skills

in order to participate in the economy,

but also that the economy needs to be in a position also to absorb young people

who are willing to innovate, also improve and contribute to society.

-Morgan, let's give you the last word.

-Thank you. Since Tino made a great argument for the supply side,

I'll make one for the demand side,

maybe giving a little bit of recommendation to employers

to be very mindful about how you present entry-level jobs

and job postings and job offerings on the internet.

You want to meet young workers where they are,

post the job postings where they are, on LinkedIn,

on social media platforms, on the internet,

and make sure you're providing the necessary information they need,

whether that be the years of experience and being very mindful of including

maybe the wage on that job posting.

-Morgan, thank you very much.

Unfortunately, that's all we have time for in this podcast.

My thanks to my three guests, Sara Elder,

who is a lead author of the recent ILO report

on Global Employment Trends for Youth, 2024,

and Morgan Williams and Tino Gwenyaya,

who are both interning at the ILO.

Good luck to you both for the next stages in your career.

Thanks also to you, our listeners, for your time and your attention.

I hope you'll join us again soon for another Future of Work podcast.

Meanwhile, you can always follow us on the main social media networks,

which include, of course, X and LinkedIn.

For now, from me and from the rest of the podcast team,

it's goodbye.