Youth jobs down 34 million during pandemic

The International Labour Organization (IOC) published a report showing that in 2019-2020 global employment of people aged 15 to 24 is higher than that of people aged 25 and over, and its reduction amounted to 34 million jobs. This happened due to the coronavirus pandemic. The total number of unemployed young people is 73 million people.

“Many of them (persons aged 15-24 years. — “b”) have left the labor market or simply missed it due to the enormous difficulty of finding and keeping a job, while many governments imposed restrictive measures, and employers suffered losses and lost income due to the closure of enterprises. Between 2019 and 2020, global youth employment fell by 34 million jobs.

The organization also reported that the employment rate of young people is still not at the pre-pandemic level. For 2022, it is 73 million people, in 2021 – 75 million people. In the pre-pendemic year, the figure was at the level of 77 million people.

According to the IOC, young women are 1.5 times less likely to be employed than men. Gender inequality is mostly recorded in countries where the income level is lower than the average.

The organization predicts a recovery in the unemployment rate to the pre-pandemic indicator by the end of 2022 in high-income countries in Europe and Central Asia.

According to Rosstatthe overall unemployment rate in Russia in 2020 is 5.8% (employment 58.4%), in 2019 – 4.6% (employment – 59.4%).

Polina Sobakina