ILO video contest for unemployed youth: Winners off to Geneva

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has launched a video contest for the youth 18 to 29 years old, depicting how the global jobs crisis is affecting their lives.   Three winners will be flown to Geneva, Switzerland, for the May 23-25 ILO Youth Employment Forum, and the opportunity to present their winning videos. Geneva-based ILO will shoulder all expenses for the winners.    “The Youth Employment Forum will gather more than one hundred young people who are engaged in promoting decent work for youth,” ILO said in a statement.   “The Forum will provide a platform for young people to share their experiences and views on the current employment situation, as well as to discuss successful initiatives that create more and better jobs for youth,” it added.   Videos must be submitted no later than 10 April 2012 at 23.59 GMT.   Globally, young people are nearly 3 times more likely than adults to be unemployed. Many of the young, who do work, have poor working conditions and often found in vulnerable forms of employment, said ILO.   In the Philippines, of 18.2 million Filipinos 15 to 24 years of age, there are: 

• 1.5 million unemployed youth striving to find employment opportunities after investing in their skills and education that may not be in demand at home or abroad

• 2.3 million vulnerably employed youth often unable to invest in their education, which forces them into forms of vulnerable employment. 

Vulnerably employed youth are often left with little choice but to accept or create whatever work they can find, just so they and their loved ones can survive another day.   “This is of greater concern,” said ILO.   More likely to be unemployed than men, women have a 20.2-percent unemployment rate compared to 16.4 percent for men, Philippine government statistics showed.   According to the National Statistics Office, citing January 2012 data, over-all unemployment rate is more prevalent in the National Capital Region (12.2 percent) than in other parts of the country (5 percentage points above the 7.2 percent national average). — with Rouchelle Dinglasan/VS, GMA News