the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Nov 13, 2006
The International Labor Organization (ILO) just published a report on what’s happening to youth employment in the world. By simply reporting numbers, it condemns the catastrophic situation of youth around the world. And the ILO is hardly a radical organization.
The study concerns youth ages 15 to 24, or more than a billion people. It reports that youth unemployment has increased from 74 million in 1995 to 85 million in 2005. This adds up to an unemployment rate of 13%, calculated by the ILO relative to the 650 million youth who are working or looking for work.
Among those working, more than 300 million live below the poverty level fixed by the ILO at $2 a day.
In the poor countries–in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe–the youth unemployment rate varies from 20% to 25%. In the richer countries, youth unemployment runs around 13%, although in the U.S. it is even higher.
The report gives other facts about youth employment. While the number of the world’s youth increased by 13.2% from 1995 to 2005, jobs for youth increased by only 3.8%. The young unemployed represent 44% of all the unemployed in the world, while youth make up only 25% of the world’s working age population.
This situation has been brought about by an economic system which is supposedly the best possible!