One of the socioeconomic problems in most countries is unemployment. It is a macroeconomic issue that has the most direct and substantial impact on every individual living in a country. Studies about unemployment compare the unemployment of older workers (aged over 45) and emerging adults (18-35 years), showing a significant rise in unemployment among emerging adults. Unemployment among emerging adults begins when they are eligible to work and is related to their levels of education, their personal skills, their behavioral characteristics, and lack of capital.
The high rate of unemployment among emerging adults is due to the following reasons: personal skills, level of education, behavioral characteristics, and lack of capital. Strong personal skills are critical to success in any job, as they allow one to interact well with employers, employees, colleagues, and clients. There are key personal skills that are essential for any youth to participate in the labor market and including numeracy, literacy, and problem-solving in technology-rich environments (Jelonek 55). Candidates with strong personal skills tend to be in high demand for a wide variety of jobs because they positively contribute to the office culture, are reliable, meet deadlines, and complete tasks.
However, lack of strong personal skills is a youth employment reason that affects young people in any country. Millions of young people are through with schooling and ready to work. Nevertheless, businesses or organizations want skills these young people never acquired. The challenge has not been the caliber of the youth because many are bright, but the training and learning they have gone through have removed reality from the end product (Schaefer 50). There seems to be a mismatch between what the education system teaches and what the labor market wants (Schaefer 45). Young people, as a result, end up experiencing a tough transition, and businesses cannot find suitable candidates for their positions; thus, they remain jobless.
Education has been considered an investment in human capital that would yield a substantial return in the form of economic growth. The basic rule that the higher the education level, the lower the risk of unemployment remains true in many countries. Although there are fewer young people with low educational qualifications in the job market, the inconsistency continues to rise despite economic development (Mayer et al. 15). For instance, studies show that employment rates for younger men are always higher than those for women. Still, the gap narrows significantly among the youth with higher levels of education.
It is a known fact that the less but well-educated candidates have higher rates than the better-educated candidates. A possible explanation for the same is due to job competition, where employers prefer candidates who are highly educated over those who are lowlily educated (Mayer et al. 17). The employers would prefer those candidates to fill vacancies that lower-educated employees previously occupied. As a consequence, the lowest educated become stranded and end up being unemployed.
The standard job search model shows that young people are less motivated to find jobs at the beginning of their unemployment crisis but tend to begin to search harder as the government cuts subsidies. Most youths are reluctant to eagerly search for a job immediately after graduation and continue in the same spirit until they get it (Aleksandrova and Nenakhova 379). They search hard at the beginning of their unemployment spell, relax their search activity, and intensify before benefits are cut. Additionally, the youth tend to be highly motivated to find new employment at the beginning of their unemployment spell. Still, they become less motivated as days go by without getting a job. Others lose interest when they get accustomed to the low pay from their employers; thus, unemployment becomes rampant among them.
The nature and causes of unemployment in underdeveloped countries are different. It is now recognized that unemployment in less developed countries is not due to a lack of product demand. Still, due to a lack of capital and other resources in the labor market Mayer et al. 19). Many young people wish to start a business of their own. Still, they often struggle to find access to affordable loans or loans in general. This might be due to high rates of interest that make it difficult for young people to repay their loans on time (Mayer et al. 20). A lack of capital to venture into business creates a challenge because when there are no businesses, there will be no creation of jobs; thus unemployment continues to be on the rise.
Conclusively, the relationship between personal skills, unavailability of capital, the level of education, individual behavioral patterns, and unemployment is remarkably robust. In a situation where an individual actively searches for employment but cannot find work, it is considered to be a vital measure of the economic performance of a country. Strictly speaking, it will be good if a government puts in place a range of coordinated and integrated interventions that can manage and monitor the unemployment crisis, especially among the youth. These interventions will be effective if they will ultimately address the crisis of unemployment, reduce the rate of unemployment, and work to address challenges the young people face in the labor market.
Works Cited
Aleksandrova, Olga, and Yulia Nenakhova. “Involvement of Vulnerable Groups in Informal Employment in the Moscow Labour Markets.” Assessing Informal Employment and Skills Needs, 2019, pp. 369-384.
Jelonek, Magdalena. “Employability skills agenda, skills race, and IVth Industrial Revolution.” Universities and the Labour Market, 2021, pp. 49-62.
Mayer, Tamar, et al. “Global laborscapes of youth unemployment.” The Crisis of Global Youth Unemployment, 2018, pp. 1-22.
Schaefer, Isabel. “Structural Causes of Unemployment and the Skill Mismatch.” Political Revolt and Youth Unemployment in Tunisia, 2017, pp. 37-56.