Study Says Finding Decent Jobs is Serious Problem for Mexico's Youth Elizabeth Velasco C. - La Jornada
go to original February 18, 2013

In Mexico, young people are the segment of the population most discriminated against in the workplace because while the unemployment rate for adults 30 years and older is 3.5 percent, in the youth sector it reaches 8.7 percent. This situation is presented in the 2012 Report on Discrimination in Mexico, in the chapter on work, prepared by the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Conapred) and the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE).

Published recently by Conapred, the study warns that because of the urgent need for youth to enter the market in order to contribute to family income, as a group, they have chosen under-employment and informal employment as paths to the labor market. However, this is "an occupational option that traps them in job insecurity, a circumstance that then it will be difficult to escape."

In addition to the disadvantages mentioned, young people lack labor experience, which "ends up becoming a basis for abuse and eventually exploitation of this population."

The study warns that since the last decades, "a large part of the working life of youth consists of stages of unemployment, underemployment, inactivity, temporary or self-employment. Such conditions lead to a departure from the elements that form the basis of their training, resulting in an increase of the social problems associated with unemployment." Also, young people receive "low pay, so they see it as impossible to complete their education."

Rodolfo Tuirán, former Undersecretary of Higher Education and now for High School Education of the Secretariat of Public Education, who was interviewed for the purposes of the report, said that in Mexico the young people leave school very early, "between the ages of 15 and 18 there is a drastic reduction in attendance, which ends up in abandonment of education."

Statistics show "that a relatively high percentage, 44 of every 100 young people between 14 and 19 years of age, say they are forced to work" and, therefore, leave school.

Even if young people perceive that "the main reason why they do not find employment is due to their lack of preparation", as revealed in the 2010 National Survey on Discrimination, the current report indicates that, in fact, "they have taken as their own responsibility what is not theirs alone. Far from being the case, it is due to an economy that is not able to incorporate them."

The study by CIDE and Conapred also reveals that, to the disadvantage of even educated youth, it is not enough to have a professional career and be highly qualified in order to enter the labor market, because "they also find it difficult to find a job.

"In the decades of the 80s and 90s, those who were highly qualified entered sectors such as banking, insurance, accounting, real estate, legal and engineering services. However, in the last decade, this same group has also seen their chances decrease."

So, "it is not true that better training leads to a better job. In fact, it is increasingly common to find graduates in the informal sector, and highly qualified young people are currently the new legal immigrants to the United States and Canada. In other words, Mexico is giving away the youth boom to its economic partners."

The outlook is grim. The report sums up: "Young people enter the labor market at a difficult time, with an economy that has had very slow growth, which has been affected by the global crisis (...) and the country has not been able to create enough jobs for a group that could become the engine of the economy."

See Spanish original

Posted by Reed Brundage at Mexico Voices

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