International Labour Organisation: Global Employment Trends for Youth – Modelling the employment impacts of the green, digital and care economies

Youth unemployment was one of the global challenges that has been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic. Cambridge Econometrics’ macroeconomic modelling for the International Labour Organisation helps young people by identifying the sectors that will have the best job opportunities for them by 2030.

The Global Employment Trends for the Youth (GET Youth) series is a major publication for the International Labour Organisation.

For the 2022 edition of the GET Youth report, Cambridge Econometrics assesses the economic and employment implications of four policy scenarios aimed at expanding the green, digital and care economies.

The modelling approach combines an existing macroeconomic model, Cambridge Econometrics’ E3ME model, which generates employment projections by sector with a method to further disaggregate the sectoral employment projections by:

• age
• gender

The analysis required a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario (baseline) with which the policy-driven scenarios can be compared. The four scenarios examined the potential for future economic and employment growth, with a particular interest in youth employment.

The Scenarios:

1. expansion of the digital economy – spurred by improved internet connectivity
2. investment in the care economy – reallocating public expenditure and raising funds to increase provision of formal health and education services
3. the transition to a greener economy – on a path towards the global ambition of net zero
4. a combined scenario – that brings together all three of the above

Key findings:

• Broadband infrastructure and changes in consumer expenditure patterns are expected to create 6 million jobs for the youth
• An increase in formal education and health and social care, in line with SDGs 3 and 4, could create 18 million jobs for the youth. The additional jobs in these sectors are expected to be taken up by mostly young women.
• In the 2030 scenario, compared to the baseline scenario, youth employment benefits from the green transition by creating more than 8 million jobs. The additional jobs are in sectors such as power, construction and services.
• The potential for youth job creation, in this combined scenario, is projected to be more than 30 million by 2030, with the largest gains in Arab States and Africa.