The shocking extent of global youth unemployment is in the UN's sights

United Nations chiefs have endorsed an initiative which aims to support youth employment by providing more sustainable, decent jobs on a global scale.

Currently two in five young people in the labour force are either unemployed or working but poor, and of 200 million unemployed in 2014, an estimated 37 per cent were aged 15-24.

Global youth labour participation rates have been declining in recent years.

While most EU countries have seen a rise in the numbers of young people neither in employment, nor education or training, the UK has seen a rise of 3.5 per cent since 2005.

The Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth, developed by 19 entities of the UN, hopes to address this issue by engaging world leaders on policy action and expand regional policies and interventions.

In addition, they will also pool experts to direct UN policy and direct additional resources to the issue.

The UN's International Labour Organisation director-general Guy Ryder, who introduced the initiative, said:


>The youth employment crisis represents a huge decent work deficit for societies worldwide and one of the main challenges of our time.

Following the adoption of the sustainable development goals, we have the unique opportunity to work together to scale up action on youth employment and tackle this crisis head on.

The UN chief executives board for coordination’s endorsement will help mobilise the various arms of the UN system, and engage multiple partners so that – in the end – young women and men have greater access to decent jobs everywhere.

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