SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Job Prospects for Youth Stay Dim in 2007

SOUTH-EAST ASIA:
Job Prospects for Youth Stay Dim in 2007
Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Dec 26 (IPS) - While South-east Asian countries appear to have
made impressive economic strides since the 1997 crisis, the region's
youth may not be able to look forward to a harvest of opportunities in
2007, the 10th anniversary of the Asian financial meltdown that began
in Thailand.

This sober assessment by economists from the International Labour
Organisation (ILO) stems from studies showing that new jobs for young
women and men have not kept pace with speed of the recovery.

''Since the crisis, unemployment has declined in South-east Asia, but
the only exception has been in youth unemployment,'' Gyorgy Sziraczki,
senior economist at the ILO's Asia-Pacific regional office in Bangkok,
told IPS. ''The growth is not enough to create jobs for youth
entering the labour force.''

South-east Asia's current youth unemployment rate at 16.9 percent of
the labour force is the highest when set against youth unemployment
rates in East Asia, which is estimated at 7.8 percent, and South Asia,
which stands at 11.3 percent, adds Sziraczki.

As worrying to him is fact that youth unemployment has doubled during
the 10-year period, starting with the economic downturn after the 1997
financial meltdown. It has gone from 5.5 million unemployed youth, or
9.7 percent of the labour force, in 1995 to some 10.4 million
unemployed youth, or 16.9 percent, in 2005.

Countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia have youth
unemployment figures that are three times as high as adult unemployment
rates, while in Thailand the rates for youth unemployment are four
times as high as adult unemployment, according to the ILO.

''Obviously, not everybody has benefited from the recovery,'' says
Sziraczki, whose economic and social analysis division is preparing a
report on employment trends across Asia to be released in early 2007.

At the same time, the decade since the financial crisis -- when the
gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 1998 contracted to --7.1 percent
in 1998 -- has seen a decline in this region's working poor, say ILO
researchers. The labour force who work but live on less then one US
dollar a day has dropped from 51.9 million in 1998 to 29.7 million in
2005, or from 22.8 percent of the labour force soon after the crisis to
11.5 percent as the region recovered.

In fact, a regional U.N. agency is hoping that South-east Asia's poor
will benefit in 2007, since the region is expected to register
impressive growth on the 10th anniversary of the financial meltdown.

''The growth momentum in the Asia-Pacific region in 2007 is expected
to come from strong growth in China and India, and a rebound in
economic growth in the South-east Asian economies,'' says the Economic
and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), a Bangkok-based
body.

''Domestic demand, particularly for investment, along with exports
will become the engine of growth (in South-east Asia),'' adds ESCAP's
'Key Economic Developments and Prospects in the Asia-Pacific Region
2007.'

While the Indonesian and Malaysian economies are expected to reach GDP
growth in the neighbourhood of six percent in 2007, Singapore, Thailand
and the Philippines are capable of hitting 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent
growth, ESCAP predicts. ''For developing Asia-Pacific economies, the
economic growth outlook in 2007 is one of continued dynamism. Economic
growth is projected at 6.9 percent in 2007, marginally lower than in
2006.''

Japan's strengthening economic indicators are also shaping such
expectations, says Ravi Ratnayake, director of ESCAP's poverty and
development division. ''If Japan's revival is sustained, then it will
help to offset the slow down in the U.S. economy.''

The sector due to cash in the most from a revived Japanese economy is
the one manufacturing for exports. ''Exports from the region will
benefit from the renewed vigour of Japanese consumers,'' states the
ESCAP report. ''The size of the Japanese economy, the world's second
largest and around twice that of China, implies that even a modest
expansion will have enormous effects on the region.''

Yet Ratnayake conceded that benefits of such growth will not be evenly
distributed to help lift all South-east Asians living in poverty.
''Although growth is taking place, the benefits of growth are not
going to the needy people or the poor people in some countries.''

A recent survey in the Philippines illustrates this contradiction.
While officials in Manila said in mid-December that they expected this
South-east Asian archipelago to hit 5.7 percent GDP growth in 2007, up
from the 5.5 GDP growth it had achieved in 2006, it has done little to
reduce the number of Filipinos going hungry.

''A record 3.3 million households have reported experiencing hunger
at least once in the past three months,'' the 'Philippine Daily
Inquirer' reported last week, quoting a recent survey by an independent
polling group, the Social Weather Stations.

''For the 11th consecutive quarter (since June 2004), hunger
incidence among households remained at double digits, reaching a new
record high of 19 percent, surpassing the previous record of 16.9
percent reached in both September and March this year,'' the paper
added. ''Moderate hunger rose in Metro Manila (from 8.2 percent to
12.7 percent).'' (END/2006)

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