[Kabar-indonesia] Asia faces tough job finding work for its young

[Joyo at aol.com]

The Straits Times (Singapore)
Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Asia faces tough job finding work for its young

Alastair McIndoe

MANILA - SUTANTYO arrived at Jakarta's main Kampung Rambutan
bus terminal late last month along with hundreds of
thousands of people returning from the provinces after the
Islamic holiday marking the end of Ramadan.

The 20-year-old, high-school graduate from a small town in
East Java will be sent home if he is caught in police swoops
on new migrants who do not have permits to work in the
capital.

'I can't find any work back home,' says Sutantyo, who hopes
to find a job as an office clerk or courier.

Sutantyo is a drop in a rising global wave of unemployed
youth.

According to a report last week by the International Labour
Organisation (ILO), the number of unemployed youth aged 15
to 24 rose worldwide by nearly 15 per cent to 85 million
between 1995 and 2005.

South-east Asia, despite the vibrancy of many of its
economies, posted by far the highest rate of growth in its
unemployed youth, whose numbers surged 85 per cent to 9.7
million over the decade. Sub-Saharan Africa was a distant
second with a 34-per-cent rise.

But the ILO uses wide brush strokes to portray youth
unemployment in a region with economies ranging from the
wealthy, such as Singapore, which was not mentioned in the
study, to the developing.

The Republic's overall unemployment rate fell to 2.7 per
cent in September from an average of 3.2 per cent last year
on the back of an economy that is ticking over nicely.

The ILO says the trend shows that South-east Asia's young
labour force has still not recovered from the fallout on
general unemployment caused by the 1997 financial crisis.

While Asia's economies are growing, job creation has not
been strong enough to absorb the tide of new entrants to the
labour force each year.

And countries with high birth rates, rigid labour laws and
the weakest economies bear the brunt of this trend.

Youth unemployment in South-east Asia is five times higher
than among adults, a ratio that is way above the global
average. Close to 16 per cent of the region's young labour
force do not have jobs, compared to 9.2 per cent in 1995.

'This is really the tip of the iceberg,' said Mr Steve
Kapsos, a labour economist in the ILO's Bangkok office.
'You have millions more who are working, but in such low
productivity jobs that they are not producing enough to exit
poverty, and that's the bigger problem in terms of numbers.'

In a fragile economy like the Philippines, where the ILO
puts youth unemployment at 25 per cent, even an empty
parking space on a busy street can be a source of income for
the jobless young men who usher drivers into a spot for a
few pesos.

In Asia's strong economies, graduates from universities and
diploma mills are not only chasing too few jobs, but also
finding it increasingly hard to find jobs fitting their
qualifications.

South Korea had a record 281,000 college graduates without
jobs this year, and its youth unemployment rate is nearly
double pre-1997 levels.

While that mainly reflects the preference of South Korean
companies to hire experienced workers rather than newcomers,
Korean graduates are also choosy - many hold out in the hope
of landing a plum job in one of the country's big-name
conglomerates rather than joining smaller firms for less
pay.

Even so, the strains of failing to land a job can have
appalling consequences.

A year after graduating from Seoul's prestigious Yonsei
University, Ms Lee Jin Gyung attempted suicide by taking an
overdose of sleeping pills.

'I was so depressed after repeatedly failing to find a good
job,' said the 23-year-old arts graduate, who received only
one job offer after sending out more than 600 applications.

But she turned it down because it paid 1.3 million won
(S$2,200) a month, well below the average two-million won
salary for a white-collar worker in Seoul.

Over in Beijing, computer software graduate He Xin, 22, got
his degree from Beijing City University four months ago.

The only job offers he has received from IT companies have
all been in lower-rung sales and customer services. He was
lucky even to get those.

Just over four million graduates joined China's workforce
this year. But even with the economy growing at a double-
digit gallop, only 1.6 million have found jobs.

Only a generation ago, a college degree was a ticket to a
job in a state-owned enterprise offering free housing and
medical benefits.

In 1998, China increased university enrolment massively to
delay a feared wave of unemployment caused by the Asian
financial crisis.

In South Asia, youth unemployment rates have stayed at
around 10 per cent over the past decade, but only one in 10
earns more than the US$2 (S$3) a day measure of poverty.
Nash Yadav pulls a cycle rickshaw in Delhi for 13 hours a
day. He earns less than that but tries to send most of his
pay to his father, a subsistence farmer in Uttar Pradesh, to
help settle a family debt.

The 18-year-old complains that not much is left after the
rent of his rickshaw and other deductions, including 'bribes
to keep the police happy'.

Despite India's economic boom and the enormous wealth being
created in its IT and pharmaceutical sectors, long queues of
unemployed are still a common sight outside recruitment
centres.

Unlike China, foreign investment in India's labour-intensive
manufacturing sector is sluggish, and there is a freeze on
government recruitment.

Investment is flocking to Vietnam as the world discovers its
young, industrious and cheap workforce.

While most of these jobs are in manufacturing, there are
plenty of opportunities for skilled profession workers. The
local papers are full of job advertisements looking for
qualified people, especially those with language skills.

Vietnamese Tran Thi Mong from Ho Chi Minh City landed a job
in public relations for a French company here just three
months after graduating from university this year.

'I studied French,' said the 22-year-old. 'My language
skills help me a lot in my work. I get US$300 a month for my
trial time and will get a higher salary when confirmed in my
job.

'Still, I plan to check out other companies to see if I can
get an even higher-paying job."

So what is the future for Asia's young workers?

The ILO says those countries with declining young labour
forces, such as South Korea and Thailand, will be able to
focus on improving the quality of jobs, as well as widen
opportunities for young women in the workplace.

But a formidable youth employment challenge remains huge
elsewhere.

The ILO forecasts that between 2005 and 2015, the youth
labour force is expected to expand by 17 per cent in
Malaysia and the Philippines, and by more than 20 per cent
in Laos and Pakistan.

'These countries will face enormous pressure to create jobs
for millions of young labour market entrants over the coming
decade,' predicts the ILO.

By Alastair McIndoe in Manila, Tschang Chi-Chu in Beijing,
Lee Tee Jong in Seoul, Devi Asmarani in Jakarta, P. Jayaram
in New Delhi, Roger Mitton in Hanoi, Nirmal Ghosh in Bangkok
and Reme Ahmad in Malaysia.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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