As many as 1.11 million Bangladeshi youths aged between 15 and 24 will lose their jobs as a consequence of the economic hit arising from the coronavirus pandemic, pushing the country’s youth unemployment rate to 20.5% this year.
The grim unemployment scenario has been predicted in a joint research report of the ILO-ADB.
The report has projected that youths will be hit harder than adults (25 years and older) in the immediate crisis and also risk bearing higher longer-term economic and social costs.
The research, titled “Tackling the Covid-19 youth employment crisis in Asia and the Pacific,” was conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The report was released on Tuesday.
The report cited three ways in which young people are affected in the current pandemic crisis.
Job disruptions in the form of reduced working hours and earnings and job losses for both paid workers and the self-employed have been cited as the prime reason.
Secondly, the report noted disruptions in education and training, difficulties in transitioning from school to work and moving between jobs in a recession.
According to the findings, about 1.11 million young people, who are full-time service holders, will lose jobs in short containment and the youth poverty rate will rise to 20.5% in 2020.
In case of long containment, the youth poverty rate will increase to 24.8% and 1.67 million young people will lose their jobs.
Of the total youth unemployment, the agriculture sector will see the highest rate of 22.9%, while it will be 12.1% for retail trade, followed by 2.6% in hotel and restaurant, 7.4% in inland transport, other services 4.5%, construction 12.8% and another 13.6% for textile and apparel sector.
In India, 4.1 million youth jobs may be lost due to the protracted Covid-19 , pushing the youth poverty rate to 29.8%, followed by Pakistan with 1.5 million, Nepal 186,000 and Sri Lanka with 102,000 job losses.
“Young people’s employment prospects in Asia and the Pacific are severely challenged as a result of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic,” says the report, adding that youths would be hit harder than adults in the immediate crisis and also risked bearing higher longer-term economic and social costs.
In 2019, the regional youth unemployment rate was 13.8% compared to 3% for adults, and more than 160 million youths or 24% of the population were not in employment, education or training (NEET), the report says.
“The pre-crisis challenges for youth are now amplified since the COVID-19 hit. Without sufficient attention, our fear is that this risks creating a ‘lockdown generation’ that could feel the weight of this crisis for many years to come,” said Sara Elder, a lead author of the report and Head of the ILO Regional Economic and Social Analysis unit.
Tackling youth employment crisis in Asia and the Pacific
The ADB and ILO in their research report call on governments in the region to adopt urgent, large-scale and targeted measures to generate jobs for youth, keep education and training on track, and minimize future scarring of more than 660 million young people in the region.
The report also recommends urgent, large-scale and targeted responses, including youth-targeted wage subsidies and public employment programmes, and measures to mitigate the impact on students of the disruption to their education and training.
Governments should consider balancing the inclusion of youth in the wider labour market and economic recovery measures, with youth-targeted interventions to maximize effective allocation of resources, the report has suggested.
“Prioritizing youth employment in the Covid-19 recovery process will improve Asia and the Pacific’s future prospects for inclusive and sustainable growth, demographic transition and social stability,’’ said Chris Morris, Head of the ADB NGO and Civil Society Center.
Disruption to youth employment in hard-hit sectors
The report says one of the reasons young people in the region face greater labour market disruption and job losses than adults is that nearly half of them (more than 100 million) were employed in the four sectors hardest hit by the crisis: wholesale and retail trade and repair, manufacturing, rental and business services, and accommodation and food services.
Young women are overrepresented in three of the four most affected sectors, particularly in accommodation and food services, the report further notes.