COVID-19 seen triggering youth employment crisis

Young Filipinos who are supposed to enter the job market this year will find it harder to gain employment amid the COVID-19-induced recession, with more than a million in potential jobs to be shed if the virus cannot be contained by September, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) said on Tuesday. In a joint report titled “Tackling the COVID-19 youth employment crisis in Asia and the Pacific,” ADB and ILO said that in Cambodia, Fiji, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand, youth unemployment rates were expected to hit at least double the 2019 estimates even in a scenario of short COVID-19 containment.

ADB and ILO estimates showed that in case the economy contracted by 3.8 percent this year, youth job losses would hit 687,000 under a short, three-month containment scenario, while a longer six-month virus containment would result in 1.019 million in lost jobs.The Philippines remained under COVID-19 quarantine, although gradually easing from the lockdown that started in mid-March—believed to be the most stringent in the region.

Under a general community quarantine, where Metro Manila and four neighboring provinces will revert after a 15-day modified enhanced community quarantine to slow down a surge in COVID-19 cases when three-fourths of economic activities resumed in June, half of the economy will again operate.Youth unemployment would still take a hit from the remaining restrictions on movement of people and nonessential goods and services—the ADB and the ILO estimated the jobless rate among young Filipinos to climb to 15.1 percent under short containment or—in the worst case—to 19.5 percent under long containment, from only 6.8 percent in 2019.ADB and ILO said the Philippines would likely have a longer containment period of until next month.

Citing results of a recent unpublished survey conducted by 10 international and regional development agencies across 183 Philippine-based companies, the report stated that “three quarters of both firm-level apprenticeships and internships were completely interrupted as a result of the pandemic.”“In the Philippines, the economic slowdown caused the majority of responding companies to discontinue providing wages or stipends to apprentices and interns,” the report read. The Philippines fell into an economic recession in the first half, with full-year gross domestic product contraction estimated by the government at 4.4-6.6 percent.“The biggest challenges that firms cited as preventing continued apprenticeships and internships were difficulties in delivering hands-on training, infrastructure issues and cost,” the report said.

As for those transitioning from school to work, data from the last quarter of 2019 indicated that 9 percent of working youth were in their first job.

“The lack of job tenure is a well-known cause of higher youth than adult unemployment rates during times of economic contraction. The pathways of a large share of young workers in Indonesia, Laos, Nepal and the Philippines into the world of work was through a first job in sectors now most impacted in the current crisis,” it added.

In the Philippines, three of the four main sectors where youth found work were in the high-impact category: wholesale and retail trade (23 percent), accommodation and food services (11 percent) and manufacturing (10 percent), the report noted.

ADB and ILO estimates showed that the Philippines’ tourism sector would shed the most jobs among young Filipinos, with hotels and restaurants projected to account for 19.8 percent of total youth job loss in the country, followed by retail trade (16.2 percent), agriculture (15.2 percent), construction (12.9 percent), other services (8.1 percent), inland transport (3.6 percent) and textile and textile products (0.6 percent). —With a report from Annelle Tayao-Juego INQ

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