No Country For Young Men

For any of you searching for employment, I’m sure you will be delighted to hear that European shares hit a five year high again yesterday, see, it’s not all bad..

Really though, the European economy is ever so slowly shambling forward to recovery, in Ireland, unemployment is slipping down bit by bit, exports are up, tourism is up, there’s a flickering at the end of the tunnel.It is now conceivable that in the next five years our unemployment rate could fall into single digits, in fact, it’s nearly there, if you’re a women that is.

A statistical snapshot of our financial ruin

A quick look at the chart confirms what we all know, which is that female unemployment is far lower than male unemployment (11% for Women and 19% for men). We also know the cause, massive downturns in male dominated areas (the construction industry of course) but what do we do about it?

Do we wait it out and hope emigration and an upturn in construction fixes the problem, or do we attempt to re-skill our male population? The thing is, no industry is impervious, who knows, perhaps in a decade we’ll see half a million IT graduates out of work.

The National Youth Council has outlined it’s suggestions, among its demands are:

*Increased investment in supports and measures to retain young people particularly disadvantaged youths on training courses.

*Courses such as the local training initiative should be refocused on young job seekers between 16 and 25 years of age.

*Training opportunities should be targeted exclusively at those who are unemployed, particularly young people and the long term unemployed.

*All state funded courses should be required to provide certification within a 3 year period. Ø Courses should be required to demonstrate their effectiveness in supporting the progression of young people into further education, training or employment.

*Where courses or programmes are not delivering for young people, the resources should be diverted to other more effective programmes.

Sources: http://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/labourmarket/principalstatistics/personsaged15yearsandoverclassifiedbysexandprincipaleconomicstatus000s/

http://www.youth.ie/advocacy/youth_unemployment