On 15 July, the world marked “World Youth Skills Day 2020”, a celebration aimed at recognizing the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship, and to highlight the crucial role of a skilled youth in addressing the current and future global challenges.
The theme this year, ‘Skills for a Resilient Youth’, reflects the unprecedented and challenging context of COVID-19 pandemic.
As revealed in reports of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the pandemic has affected young people more than any other group, with nearly one in six young people out of work. We are also observing an increase in unemployment being more pronounced among young women as compared to young men. Those that have managed to retain their jobs have seen their working hours cut by nearly 25 per cent.
With 16% of the world’s population belonging to youth (aged between 15-24) which in turn constitutes nearly 25% of the total working age population, enhancing the skills of the youth is an imperative that we cannot ignore if we are to successfully address the devastating socio-economic effects of the pandemic on the youth.
India is amongst the youngest countries in the world, and is therefore well poised to take advantage of its high demographic dividend. On World Youth Skills Day, Prime Minister Modi addressed the Digital Skills Conclave expressing the need for skilling, reskilling and upskilling the youth. The Prime Minister further highlighted that skills play a key role in making a person self-reliant and enhances one’s self-employment potential.
Likewise, the United Nations encourages all stakeholders to promote skilling programmes for the youth. This further has a domino-effect which help in making significant strides in the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals. For example, not only does it contribute in attaining SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) by providing more opportunities to work, it also helps in achieving SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 3 (good health and well-being), SDG 4 (quality education), and SDG 16 (partnership for the goals).
However, in current times, we have witnessed that economies around the world have been affected, subsequently hampering the possibility of improving the skills of the youth. The global pandemic has impacted not only employment opportunities but has also disrupted the delivery of education, training and skills development programs, and has also made labour market entry and transition between jobs quite challenging.