ILO: Labour market ‘still healing’

Stubbornly high youth unemployment three years into the pandemic risks forever trapping millions of early-career workers in informal, poorly paid jobs, says the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Some 73 million people aged 15 to 24 will be without work in 2022, 6 million more than in 2019, according to the ILO. Young workers were suffering as they were among the first to lose their jobs when lockdowns forced businesses to close worldwide, and because firms stopped hiring.

“Young people who lose their job or fail to obtain one are particularly vulnerable to scarring, the phenomenon whereby their future labour-market outcomes are worse than those of their peers even when macroeconomic conditions improve again,” the ILO said.