Data shows the only statistics growing regarding youth employment, training and education are those recording their unemployment and disengagement from learning.

Unrewarding start

In the year to March 2024, Radio NZ says 12.4 percent of 15 to 24-year olds were not in employment, education or training (NEET). Of these, 14.2 percent were female.

These data indicate a marked increase from those reported at the end of March 2023. At that time, 10.9 percent of young people were in the NEET group; of those, 11.5 percent were young women.

For those aged 20 to 24, the rate was significantly higher this year than last. Over 18 percent of women in this age bracket were in the NEET group, up 27 percent year-on-year.

A Wellington mother whose now 21-year-old has lived on the benefit for the past three years wants more for him.

"Ultimately I really want them to get into something engaging and enriching. I want them to have a pathway to independence, to going flatting" she says.

Other parents share her aims.

Regional variation

The worst place to be if you're a young NEET is Northland.

It had the highest NEET rate at the end of March this year at 16.3 percent of people aged 15 to 24. The Bay of Plenty is next in line at 16.2 percent says Craig Renney, Council of Trade Unions policy director and economist.

Renney is concerned.

He says that young people in this situation are facing a potential "huge challenge" throughout their lives. Wage and employment scarring can happen when their labour market prospects deteriorate as a direct result of an initial spell of unemployment

"The longer they spend NEET, the worse the labour market outcomes tend to be for those people."

Renney says it's possible that young women's unemployment is a reflection of what's happening in the industries they had typically been employed in.

"We know construction is struggling, manufacturing is struggling but perhaps not as much as high street retail. Perhaps not as much as the more female-dominated industries."

Apprenticeships are often shed during downturns, Renney observes.

"Then when the upswing comes as inevitably as the downswing, and we suddenly need apprentices, we don't have any."

What to do

Helping NEET young people to stay in New Zealand and use or develop their skills here is important Renney says.

"Do they [the ones with skills] stay in-country? If they've got skills and not in education, employment or training they might say 'stuff this I'm going to Oz' and they don't come back. That's a permanent loss on that side.

"The longer you're out of employment the harder it is to get back in, that's why interventions at that point in life are so vital."

Source

• RNZ

It's a problem that concerns everyone - from China's president, to social media commentators and song writers.

A new song - Tang Ping (Lying Flat) - takes a jibe at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for downplaying the high rate of youth unemployment and the hopelessness that goes with it

It also urges young people to be less picky about their jobs, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports.

Lost expectations

The song's lyrics note that many young people are rejecting society's expectations.

These include Gen Z Chinese youth who are rejecting traditional milestones like marriage, children and finding a job, the reports say.

A Chinese social media influencer who has relocated to Taiwan, says the Chinese government's promise of obtaining a job after studying hard and graduating was "an unachievable dream."

"One very important reason for the prevalence of Lying Flat culture is that no matter how hard you work, you can't live a good life" he told RFA.

An associate professor at the Taipei University of Maritime Technology says the Chinese Communist Party doesn't have an effective economic policy to stimulate growth and employment.

"Young people can't see a future and they can't see any hope," he says.

This is despite China's President Xi Jinping urging Chinese youth to "shoulder important responsibilities in the new era," promoting the government's "positive" propaganda.

Touching reality

Many social media users call China's current social reality a "political depression."

The situation in China is worsening year by year, a Chinese social media user says.

"...It's harder and harder to make money, and prices just get higher and higher.

"People living at the bottom [of the economic ladder] are finding it harder every day."

Unemployment statistics

Last April China's National Bureau of Statistics' data showed the youth unemployment rate was at 20.4 percent among people aged 16 to 24, RFA reports.

However an associate professor at Peking University says the true youth unemployment figures could be as high as 46.5 percent. That would also take into account "young people currently not looking for work" and living with their parents.

Last year the World Bank said that over the past four decades China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty.

It estimates 13 percent of China's over 1.41 billion people still live in poverty.

Source

• UCA News