Comments
Tentative indicators 3 and 4 are not intended to capture the stigmatizing concept of “NEET” (“not in education, employment or training”), but rather to show the structural inequalities and lack of opportunities that affect young people especially badly. Additional indicators should include those relating to underemployment or informal employment, although these could be incorporated into the measurement of decent work (depending on how that measure is operationalized). In view of the well-documented social and labour inequality in almost all the countries of the region, indicators should be disaggregated by sex, area of residence, socioeconomic level and ethnicity.
Possible lines of action
1. Implement specific occupational training programmes for youth. 2. Establish incentives for hiring young people. 3. Introduce systems of incentives and assistance to help young people find employment. 4. Create public works programmes for young professionals and technicians. 5. Provide technical support and concessional loans for young entrepreneurs. 6. Implement programmes to facilitate reconciliation of employment and studies. 7. Adopt, regulate and enforce labour legislation to punish discrimination against young people at social risk.
Related instruments, forums and mechanisms
Sustainable Development Goals, target 8.6 (cited above under priority measure 7).
Ibero-American Convention on the Rights of Youth, article 26 (“Right to work”), article 27 (“Right to conditions of work”) and article 28 (“Right to social protection”).
Given that this priority measure pertains to labour, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has an obvious role in supporting and monitoring it. In fact, the notion of decent work comes from ILO, which in 1999 defined it thus: “Decent work sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives. It involves opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men” (for details on recent progress on measuring decent work, see ECLAC/ILO, “Advances and challenges in measuring decent work”, The employment situation in Latin America and the Caribbean, No. 8, (LC/L.3630), Santiago, May 2013).
