Inclusion and work: addressing the global challenges for youth employment

• Pages: 110-120
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-12-2017-0290
• Date: 14 March 2018
• Published date: 14 March 2018
• Author: Subas P. Dhakal,Julia Connell,John Burgess

Inclusion and work: addressing

the global challenges for youth

employment

Subas P. Dhakal

School of Management, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

Julia Connell

Graduate Research School,

University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia, and

John Burgess

Department of Management,

RMIT University College of Business, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to outline the key global challenges relating to youth employment

and consider some ways that they may be addressed to allow their inclusion in the contemporary workplace.

Also, the paper provides a brief introduction and rationale for the other five articles comprising this special

issue volume.

Design/methodology/approach –The approach concerns a review of the relevant literature and reports

on the topic.

Findings –The challenges outlined in this paper and the others in this special issue volume emphasise the

need for much more work to be done to address the current global challenges relating to youth

unemployment. It points to: the difficulties many young workers face in taking the first step towards gaining

employment; the need for stakeholder collaboration towards future policy investment as well as strategy

implementation and integration.

Originality/value –To date, much of the research that has been conducted on the challenges of youth

employment and inclusion appears to have focussed on Europe and the USA. This special issue volume

includes countries that have been less researched to date: Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mauritius,

Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, thus adding to current understanding of the topic in those contexts.

Keywords Labour market, Asia-Pacific, Education-work transitions, Youth employment

Paper type General review

Introduction

Those people who are over the school leaving age and under 25 years old are generally

described as “youth”as classified by the International Labour Organisation (ILO)

(ILO, 2006). Despitebeing the focus of wide-rangingpolicy interventions,youth unemployment

has been an ongoing problem in many countries for several decades (Bell an d Blanchflower,

2011, p. 241). Full productive employment and decen t work for all, particularly for women and

young people, is reported as one of the most effective routes out of poverty (ILO, 2015a).

The right to work concernsthe concept that people have a human right to work, or engage in

productive employment (see the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

The United Nations recently released the Sustainable Development Goals (including Goal

8–Decent work)and Goal 4 which states that by2030, there is a need to substantiallyincrease

the number of youth and adults who have the relevant skills, including technical and

vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship (United Nations, 2015).

There are, of course,a number of challengesrelated to these targets. For example,it has been

estimated thatover 600 million new jobs will need to be createdby 2030, to keep pace with the

growth of the globalworking age population –this equates toapproximately 40 million jobs

per year (ILO, 2015b). The recent global recession has affected transitions from education to

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 37 No. 2, 2018

pp. 110-120

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-12-2017-0290

Received 25 December 2017

Accepted 30 January 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

110

EDI

37,2