South East Europe Regular Economic Report, No. 9S, Fall 2016 : Ten Messages About Youth Employment in South East Europe
Today, nearly half of youth in the six South East European countries (SEE6) are not in the labor market, and one quarter is inactive—not in employment, education, or training. These poor outcomes partly reflect a difficult recovery in SEE6 from the...
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| Language: | English en_US |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/940151479220585911/Ten-messages-about-youth-employment-in-South-East-Europe http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25862 |
| Summary: | Today, nearly half of youth in the six
South East European countries (SEE6) are not in the labor
market, and one quarter is inactive—not in employment,
education, or training. These poor outcomes partly reflect a
difficult recovery in SEE6 from the 2008 global financial
crisis, which sent already high youth unemployment soaring
to new heights. This paper presents 10 evidence-based
messages on the youth employment challenges in SEE6. The 10
messages demonstrate that many factors disproportionately
affect jobless youth. Often young people bear the brunt of
the structural and cyclical vulnerabilities that are
embedded in the functioning of labor markets in the region.
But the challenges faced by cyclically unemployed and
structurally jobless young people in SEE6 differ, and so do
the policy responses to address them. For the former, it is
vital to keep youth engaged in the labor market during
recessions and build their human capital while the labor
market recovers. For the latter, the policy agenda is
deeper; it is necessary to address the disincentives to work
and hire youth embedded in exclusionary labor regulations
and labor taxation; equip new labor entrants with the skills
the market needs; and improve their access to productive
inputs, such as land, finance, and professional connections.
Policy measures to combat joblessness could often have much
more importance for youth than other age groups. But the
SEE6 policy agenda to address youth unemployment and
inactivity is not an isolated agenda; it is an agenda for
higher overall employment with specific elements for youth.
Therefore, measures promoting overall job creation should be
complemented, not replaced, by measures focused on youth. |
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