Answer to Question #77159 in Macroeconomics for Ebony Cruz

Question

Can you provide many reasons as why youth unemployment is an issue?

Answer 1

Unemployment remains the fundamental cause of the social evils commonly associated with high unemployment levels. The various reasons why youth unemployment is an issue are:-
•Youth unemployment is an unseen unutilized resource. Unemployment at the start of the career may lead to having lower skills, no experience and a general loss of confidence by the individual which promotes successive fear of unemployment in later stages of career. Unemployed youth also report more isolation from their community.
• It affects socio-economic condition of family and results in poor mental health and increases magnitude of corruption drug addiction, crime and suicide in the society. The rise of political unrest and anti-social behaviour in the world has been recently attributed to youth unemployment.
•Youth unemployment has indirect costs like emigration. Young people leave their countries in hope to find employment in other countries. This causes brain drain or loss of talent in home country and contributes to deteriorating countries' competitiveness.
•Youth unemployment must be controlled to maintain economic performance of a country. High youth unemployment has a negative impact on economic growth and productivity. Having a large share of the young workforce unemployed leads to reduced productivity and gross domestic product (GDP).
•These imminent problems associated with unemployment present a significant challenge to many governments in seeking to provide solutions to the problem of unemployment. Adverse impacts may take the form of lower levels of human capital, reduced wage rates and weakened labour force participation in the future.
• Fresh thinking necessary for employers to foster new designs and innovative ideas comes from young people of new generation. Widespread youth unemployment may hinder innovation and technological advancement in various fields.