Seminar on Youth Employment in North America

1. Seminar on Youth Employment in North America “Creating Job Opportunities for the Youth” General Coordination of the National Employment Service Lic. Omar Rodríguez Alarcón DECEMBER, 2008

2. Characteristics of the Future of the Economy... • Three important tendencies at a global scale will determine the way future employment will be: • Globalization: allows investing in foreign Nations, through international trade and globalized capital flows. • Technology: Modifies the working nature, schedules and spaces, promotes adaption, mobility, adoption of competences, learning and updating. • Demography: A century ago, life expectancy for a person in Mexico was 40 years, in the 21st Century it will be over 80, = Increase in the years of productive life.

3. The main resource in the New Global Economy is Knowledge. • In the Century that begins, the labor world and the creation of wealth will stop being based on the natural resources and the generation and application of information and knowledge will be even more established. • According to the OECD, the “knowledge workers” already represent 8 of every ten new jobs, given that half the wealth of the industrialized societies comes from intangible assets.

4. PERSONS EMPLOYED IN MEXICO BY ECONOMIC SECTOR In the 21st Century world of labor, occupations aimed at providing technical, professional and specialized services focused on the people’s wellbeing will predominate.

5. The generation, dissemination and application of knowledge will be fundamental at generating the necessary wealth to create the jobs that the country will require during the 21st Century. World Labor Tendencies • Surfing through the cyberspace will not only be a compulsory subject in schools, but also one of the most expansive job sources for the next decades. • In North America, the most dynamic areas are: • Engineering • Clinic Medicine • Biomedics & Geonomy • Earth Science • Space Research • Telecommunications • Robotics • Cybernetics & • Geospatial Technology

6. PARADIGM CHANGES IN THE WORLD OF LABOR

7. Increase on the number & quality of the work force Increase on the capital stock Growth= + Job generation is a result of: ] [ = + Increase on capital and work productivity as a result of the technological change, the education system, innovation and scientific research.

8. Populations at the Third Quarter of 2008 POPULATION UNDER 14 29,398,051 EMPLOYED POPULATION 43,625,738 PEA UNEMPLOYED POPULATION 45,535,466 1,909,728 INACTIVE POPULATION AVAILABLE PNEA 4,939,936 31,860,845 INACTIVE POPULATION NOT AVAILABLE TOTAL POPULATION 26,399,456 106,794,362 EMPLOYED POPULATION 14,419,079 PEA 15,509,517 UNEMPLOYED POPULATION 1,090,438 YOUTH (14-29 YRS.) INACTIVE POPULATION AVAILABLE PNEA 29,867,713 2,295,267 14,358,196 INACTIVE POPULATION NOT AVAILABLE 12,062,929 Source ENOE

9. DIAGNOSTICS & FORECAST…

10. EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATION IN MEXICO • During the last five and a half years, 1.7 million students graduated from High Education in the country. • Also, it is estimated that for the next decade, little over 5 million students will graduate with a B.A. degree.

11. EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATION IN MEXICO • In the last decade, the percentage of people with higher education in Mexico has increased by 40%. • Regardless of the value of high education, the income of professionals who work has not increased

12. EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATION IN MEXICO The increase of the university enrollment from 1997 to 2007 has concentrated on the economic-administrative disciplines and social science, with increases of 69% & 66% respectively. 254,598

13. EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATION IN MEXICO Even though the supply of Study Programs in Mexico has duplicated in a decade ….. • From the 1.9 million students registered in higher education in the country, currently 1 of every three students studies in one of the following three Programs: • In contrast, only 1 in every thousand students in the country studies one of the following programs: Biochemistry, Ocean Science y Biomedicine.

14. The lack of orientation and affiliation causes young people to study programs that are not being demanded by the economy Relationship between school formation and occupation More than 30% of the employed professionals in the country work in activities not related to their professional education. Source: National Survey on Occupation & Employment

15. Young people face greater difficulties of access employment opportunities.

16. In the third quarter of 2008, 1.9 million people were unemployed. • The unemployment rate was 4.2 percent. • Unemployment within young people was 8.2%. The insufficient rhythm of economic growth influences youth to remain inactive, prolonging their academic formation and delaying their integration to the work force.

17. EMPLOYED BY ACTIVITY AND AGE GROUPS

18. THE YOUTH AND THEIR INCLUSION IN THE JOB MARKET IN MEXICO • 64% of the young people in Mexico start working between 15 & 24 years old. • 78% of those who started a job for the first time, did it through a recommendation of family or friends, and not through formal mechanisms or channels of the labor market Source: National Youth Survey 2005

19. International convergence on public policy to face the employment challenge : • Adapt the labor law to a more flexible labor world (Flexi-security). • Train the workers to perform new jobs in industries and sectors which can expand, with the goal of creating new markets. • Increase the efficiency under which the workers are assigned to the jobs. • Increase the workers’ opportunities through the improvement of their skills. • Modernize and comply with the regulations and main standards of Labor Law.

20. Given the characteristics of the Labor Market in Mexico, three basic intervention lines are identified so as to stimulate the employability: • Reduction of the structural unemployment (employability of the least protected population groups and with very low levels of schooling and qualifications): train and provide “working identity” to more than 7 million workers with no formal schooling, acknowledging their working skills obtained through direct practice, through the certification of their labor competences. • Abating of Precarious Employment: transition from the informal activities to the structured sector of the economy, through programs that foster the entrepreneurial initiative and the organization of local productive units. • Management of the labor force (pertinent education and training for the future Labor Market participants : labor orientation and affiliation for students and parents)

22. Eliminate the obstacles and barriers that hinder or dissuade the productive sector from creating new working positions, and to absorb the newcomers in the labor markets Adequate and raise the qualifications of the labor force to the market conditions of the 21st Century. Stimulate new occupations in new markets to provide for the expected increase in the participation rates, and to avoid the increase of informal & illegal activity. Objectives and actions for an Employment Policy for the Employability of the Youth: Action Objective Stimulate a productive, dynamic apparatus, capable of maintaining and enhancing the working conditions of current workers Demand Increase the employability of vulnerable groups through active policies for their employment, to avoid harmful costs in other policy sectors (health, public security) Increase quality at work. Supply

23. CONCLUSION There is no better labor and employment policy than that which prepares and trains the youth today, to embark, innovate and create the enterprises and jobs in the 21st Century.