Focus: Can unions be effective for young workers?

Abstract

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 5 Volume 20 Issue 3 2013 dicted, according to ILO estimates. In 2012, the ILO finds that youth unemployment rates outside the major industrialised economies were highest in the Middle East and North Africa, at 28.3 percent and 23.7 percent, respectively. Rates were considerably lower in East Asia, where the level was 9.5 percent, and in South Asia, where the rate was 9.3 percent. Explaining the divergences, the ILO observes that South Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa present relatively low regional youth unemployment rates. This, the ILO’s youth report finds, is linked to high levels of poverty, which means that in countries without strong and effective social security systems, working is simply a necessity for many young people. To give a sense of perspective the ILO cites global youth unemployment at 73.4 million in 2013, an increase of 3.5 million since 2007. Precarious and atypical work Difficulties in finding work, lengthy periods of unemployment in between brief work contracts, and extreme precariousness during periods of employment mean that even for young people who are officially ‘in-work’ the situation can be ‘unbearable’ and can ‘lead to resignation in many cases’, according to a recent paper published by the German social-democratic research institute Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (‘FES’). In several countries young workers are contemplating migration as a potential escape from poor employment prospects at home. A 2013 report by the National Youth Council of Ireland showed that 300,000 people (around 6.5 percent of the population) have emigrated since 2008, the majority being young people. A report from the International Trade Union Confederation (‘ITUC’) titled ‘The Social Crisis – the Millions of Young People Unemployed’, notes that ‘many young people are no longer able to build a life plan, a vision of the future’ and ‘represent a totally disproportionate share of precarious workers’. Some may be able to extend periods of education, tempering the situation to some extent, while others are forced to live with their parents, even for a number of years, where this is possible. These employment patterns , it should be noted, are now extending into young workers’ early 30s, with potentially very significant implications for their entire working lives. EU measures to address youth unemployment have not all been as helpful in their characterisation of the situation as some would have wished. The FES paper ‘the European Union tackling youth unemployment in times of crisis’, by Paz Martín Martín, observes that all EU measures have so far focused on ‘employability’ and ‘activation’ of young people, suggesting that responsibility for these staggering unemployment levels is in T he current crisis detonated into popular consciousness in 2008 as news of a series of banking collapses began to translate into rising unemployment figures. From 2005-8 the unemployment rate in Europe had been falling and had reached a low point of 16 million (6.7 percent). In 2008 this trajectory changed dramatically , and over the next five years unemployment rocketed to 26.5 million (both figures cover the 28 countries now in the European Union (‘EU’), so the large jump is not accounted for by the entry of new EU Member States). Among these more than 26 million are very many young workers, some of whom have now been unable to find any secure or appropriate employment since leaving education several years previously. Of all sections of society, young people may be the most affected by the economic crisis. The European statistics agency Eurostat reports a population of some 57.5 million persons aged 1524 years across the 28 countries of the EU (the EU 28) in 2012. Of these 18.8 million were employed, and 5.6 million were unemployed (forming together a labour force of 24.4 million persons). A further 33 million were ‘economically inactive’, which in many cases means that they are still participating in education programmes and thus might not necessarily be appropriately regarded as either ‘employed’ or ‘unemployed’. Again according to Eurostat, the unemployment rate in Greece is now running at 55.3 percent and it has reached 53.2 percent in Spain. With more than half of all young people...