Indonesia: Youth Employment Action Plan 2004-2007
Indonesia: Youth Employment Action Plan 2004-2007
English
Governments
Governments hold a wealth of knowledge on skills development, and are increasingly realizing the value of learning from each others’ experiences. Their policy documents, programme evaluations, and research findings contain their experience and ideas on how to better link skills to employment
Gender equality
Women represent both half of the world's population – and half the world's economic potential. Their participation in the labour market reduces poverty because they often invest 90 per cent of their income in the well-being, education and nutrition of their families. Yet labour force participation by women has stagnated at about 55 per cent globally since 2010. Moreover, women are disproportionately represented in precarious work – low-paid, low-skilled and insecure jobs.
Training plays an important role in the pursuit of equality of opportunity and treatment for women and men in the world of work. Yet women often lack access to technical and vocational education and training. Many also lack the basic functional skills, such as literacy and numeracy, to participate meaningfully in the work force. Overcoming this challenge requires the adoption of a life-cycle approach. This includes improving girls’ access to basic education; overcoming logistic, economic and cultural barriers to apprenticeships and to secondary and vocational training for young women; and meeting the training needs of women re-entering the labour market and of older women who have not had equal access to opportunities for lifelong learning.
Skills policies and strategies
Skills and employment policies should be viewed together. The full value of one policy set is realized when it supports the objectives of the other. For investments in education and training to yield maximum benefit to workers, enterprises, and economies, countries’ capacities for coordination is critical in three areas: connecting basic education to technical training and then to market entry; ensuring continuous communication between employers and training providers so that training meets the needs and aspirations of workers and enterprises, and integrating skills development policies with industrial, investment, trade, technology, environmental, rural and local development policies.
Training quality and relevance
Youth employability
Globally, nearly 68 million young women and men are looking for and available for work, and an estimated 123 million young people are working but living in poverty. The number who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) stands at 267 million, a majority of whom are young women. Significantly, young people are three times as likely as adults (25 years and older) to be unemployed.
Skills development is a primary means of enabling young people to make a smooth transition to work. A comprehensive approach is required to integrate young women and men in the labour market, including relevant and quality skills training, labour market information, career guidance and employment services, recognition of prior learning, incorporating entrepreneurship with training and effective skills forecasting. Improved basic education and core work skills are particularly important to enable youth to engage in lifelong learning as well as transition to the labour market.
National policies and initiatives
National legislation, policies and initiatives on the issue of training and skills development and the world of work.
1. To identify the key issues and challenges faced by young women and men in their transition through education to the workplace;
2. To acknowledge that many policies, programs and activities already exist and to provide a platform for the sharing of information and knowledge at the national, provincial and district levels, that will enrich the various initiatives already being undertaken;
3. To set priorities for action by policymakers and other stakeholders;
4. To demonstrate the need for, and benefits of, an integrated approach to addressing the youth employment challenge;
5. To provide a set of policy recommendations that can contribute to the creation of quality jobs, thereby reducing unemployment, under-employment and the numbers of young people living and working in poverty;
6. To stimulate action by individuals and groups of stakeholders to involve themselves in processes and programs that directly and indirectly contributes to the generation of more and better jobs for young men and women;
7. To urge provincial and district level governments to mainstream youth employment issues into economic and social policies, strategies and programs at the provincial and district levels.
8. To encourage young men and women to participate in dialogue and collective action as a necessary pre-requisite for an accurate and effective response.
Entrepreneurship
Globalization
Policy convergence
Private sector
School-to-work transition
Vocational training
Asia and the Pacific
