ILO: Database to Support Youth Employment

In an attempt to help government entities reintegrate their youth into the labor market that was cratered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Labor Organization (ILO) created a global database of national employment policies and strategies promoting youth employment.

Although the Employment Policy Gateway was created at the behest of state actors and employer and worker organizations, the site will also be accessible to research institutions, professionals and other stakeholders. In it, users will be able to search for current employment

development policies and strategies by region, country and theme. This function intendedly allows actors to conduct comparative analysis and find complementary research and analysis needed for policy making.

“The Employment Policy Gateway aims to ensure that these policies and strategies are systematically analyzed and documented, and made available in a simple format,” said Sukti Dasgupta, Head of the Employment, Labor Markets and Youth Service.

Moreover, the organization hopes that access to this information will accelerate employment-intensive recovery from the COVID-19 crisis while promoting gender inclusive policies needed to build a robust and innovative economy. This is particularly relevant for Mexico, which saw 24 million women pull out from the workforce during the two-year long pandemic. Before this disruption, however, women in Mexico only had a 43 percent labor force participation, among the lowest of many emerging economies according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

In August, despite surpassing economic growth expectations, the country was still working on bridging the loss of 2 million jobs, whose disappearance had effectively sidelined young professionals, particularly women, between the ages of 15 and 34, reported the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP). These findings were substantiated by the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), which found that women had been disproportionally affected as indicated by a 24 percent decline in their employment, accounting for 5.4 million jobs of the 12.5 million total lost to the pandemic.

Through ILO’s platform, Mexico and other economies will be able to reference feasible polices and regulations to fit their national frameworks and reintegrate youth into the labor force.