OECD urges more US spending on youth jobs programs as teenage unemployment reaches highest level since WWII
The US should raise significantly federal funding on jobs programs for young people in order to limit the impact of the economic downturn on the current generation of school leavers, according to a new OECD report.
Jobs for Youth: United States says that despite signs of economic recovery, the outlook for young people in the jobs market will remain difficult in the coming years. In the year to November 2009, the youth unemployment rate rose by 8 percentage points to 19%, equivalent to 1.6 million more young people out of work.
Teenagers have been hit especially hard: just over one in four 16 to 19 year-old Americans were unemployed in November 2009 compared to one in ten for all workers. This is the highest rate of teenage unemployment in the US since World War II.
The OECD recommends the US introduce measures, including:
- Temporarily relax unemployment benefit eligibility criteria for youths with some work experience, but apply strict job-search requirements;
- Expand existing early-childhood education programs and provide more support for parents and children when they go to primary school;
- Extend vocational training by rolling out nationwide Career Academies, small learning establishments within high schools combining academic and technical education;
- Broaden the role of the Office of Apprenticeships to include funding responsibilities and introduce subsidies and sub minimum wages for apprentices in order to promote the use of apprenticeships in SMEs and for teenagers and at risk youths;
- Favour summer jobs programs for at risk youths who are still at school;
- Expand the Job Corps programs for young adults and encourage teenagers to stay on the program longer and do more vocational training.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
