According to ILO, the lack of decent work compromises the future of millions of young people in Latin America and is also the cause and consequence of the persistent inequality situation in the Region.

Lima (ILO news) – The unemployment rate among young poor people in Latin America is three times the rate among richer youngsters, a situation that shows and deepens la persistent inequality within the region.

ILO’s Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Elizabeth Tinoco said: “Employment problems affect all youngsters, but is more serious among those who come from poor families.” She also stated that such scenery “is both the cause and consequence for income inequality and social exclusion in the region”.

There are around 108 million youngsters from 15 to 24 years old in the region, out of which little more than half, 56, 1 million, belong to the workforce, meaning they are either looking for a job or already employed. Among young people with higher incomes, unemployment is around 8, 5%, a rate that goes up to 25, 5% among poorer young people. Therefore, the difference between both segments is around 17 percentage points.

Poor young women have a 35% unemployment rate, while those women with higher incomes have 10% rate, a difference of 25 percentage points.

Tinoco added that “data collected shows that among young people inequality as regards access to employment is a reality that presents a great challenge to our countries”.

Data comes from the report called “Decent Work and Youth in Latin America”, which analyses tendencies during a 6 year period from 2005 to 2011 and successful experiences in several countries that deal with a situation that demands the application of specific policies.

Besides having an unemployment rate that doubles the general rate and triples the adults’ rate, young people must face an employment reality in which 6 out of 10 available jobs are under informal conditions.

Then again, the inequality situation is shown as the informality rate is 77% for young people with lower income and 41% for those who have higher incomes, the distance being 36 percentage points.

Social security data is eloquent. Only 12, 2% of poorer young people contribute to social security and 12,3% do it for pensions, compared to the 58,9% and 61% of contributors among young people with higher incomes. The reveals great differences as regards accessing social security protection, which is considered a key tool to fight against poverty.

Young people who neither work nor study represent approximately 20% of the total, meaning that around 20 million youngsters are the focus of particular concern, as they are more exposed to becoming socially excluded. In this case there is also great inequality.

Among people suffering poverty, over 30% neither study nor work, a percentage that goes to 10% among richer people.

The report also quotes data regarding access to education, according to which the percentage of people aged between 20 and 24 years old that finished secondary school is 21,7%, while among those with higher incomes the rate goes up to 78%, a gap of 56 percentage points.

Among people from 25 to 29 years old that concluded at least 5 years of superior education, there is a notable difference, as only 0, 6% of people with lower incomes achieve it, compared to 22% when it comes to people with higher incomes.

Tinoco established that “If young people do not have access to a decent job when starting their careers, they may endure an unemployment situation and bad working conditions that are very hard to improve later on, tending to perpetuate poverty situations”.

The ILO has established the need to implement a combination a policies particularly designed to deal with young people’s employment issues. Such measures should include: policies that enabled young people’s access to a higher quality education, training strategies that guarantee a better transition from school to employment, support to entrepreneurs and specific actions to support the creation and formalization of employment.