A report warning about almost of 60% Argentinian youth working under informal conditions was presented during a seminar on youth employment promotion.

Recently, a seminar on youth employment promotion was developed in Buenos Aires city. Participants of the event included specialists from the International Labour Organization (ILO) and from the Argentinian Ministry of Labour.

During the seminar, different public policies for youth employment promotion carried out in countries such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Uruguay and Portugal, were presented and discussed. Furthermore, there was a debate about a report developed by the local office of ILO that warns that 3 out of 7 youngsters do not graduate from secondary school and have little continuity in their jobs.

The event focused on the following question: how can decent work for young people be generated? According to ILO’s document “Towards decent work for Argentinian youth”, the resolution adopted by the International Labour Conference (ILC) of 2005 had already established the key elements to develop decent work:

• Strengthening the macroeconomic foundations to support economic growth rates in the long term and face short term economic cycles,
• Promoting general strategies to formalize informal economy.

In addition, ILO experts considers a key measure every action that seeks to remove structural obstacles in the medium term –usually linked to public policies for education.-, and take care of vulnerable low income populations with social protection policies. In other words, measures that take care of vulnerable youth who live in marginal areas and are born with economic, social and cultural disadvantages, which, most of the times, condemn them to a precarious environment with no chances to access basic goods to have a decent life.

ILO’s data states that about 200,000 youngsters enter every year the Argentinian labour market. The creation of decent work for youth is one of the biggest challenges the country faces.

During the seminar, it became clear that small and medium companies create 90% of the country’s jobs. There are positive expectations with the first employment law, which is currently being discussed in the Labour Commission of the Chamber of Deputies. The law seeks to provide incentives for youth employment by granting employers’ tax benefits for employers.

In the past few years, several programs to promote youth employment were implemented and they delivered good results. Consequently, the experts established the need to continue with these initiatives to tackle informal employment. Moreover, policies to prevent school dropouts among teenagers must be reinforced and measures to promote the creation of quality jobs in every region of the country must be developed.

There were certain key issues that were not discussed during the seminar, including the rigidity of the Argentinian labour market, deficiencies in informal labour control or the key role temporary employment companies, which are the main entrance gate to the formal labour market for young people. These companies provide decent work and around 40% of the youngsters employed by them get a permanent job in the user company.

ILO’s Convention 181 on Private Employment Agencies provides a proper framework to the well-functioning of these companies, which make a direct contribution to social and economic progress. Argentina has not ratified this convention yet.