The Asia-Pacific Knowledge Network on Youth Employment (APYouthNet) is an ILO-sponsored community of practice that brings together youth employment experts, practitioners and youth from across the Asia-Pacific region.  It serves as a gateway and platform to the region*s collective resources, experiences, ideas and solutions to the problems that youth face everyday

Become part of this network which currently consists of over 280 members who are dedicated to finding solutions to the youth employment challenge!  Current members include practitioners, experts, professions and youth themselves.  To register, please click here

As part of this initiative, we also regularly host online discussion forums - the next one will be begin on November 23rd and focus on the rights and conditions of employment of young workers.  More details on this will be posted online.

If you have any further questions/comments, please do not hesitate to contact apyouthnet@ilo.org.

More info about click here

“We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race.” – Kofi Annan 

by Ms. Tan Sze Wei, APYN Coordinator

The 2009 Durban review conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland from 20 to 24 April 2009 to evaluate progress towards the goals set by the 3rd World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimnation, xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban, South Africa in 2001. As I was in Geneva to attend PSI constitutional meetings in the same period, I took some time to attend parallel events for the conference in the afternoon of 20 April 09.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO), together with International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and other trade unions, held the side event “Combating racism in the world of work” on 20 April 2009 at 3pm. The session was chaired by Mr Kari Tapiola, ILO Executive Director, Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work sector, ILO and the panelists were, Ms Gulnara Shahinian, United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Ms Kamalam from the International Trade Union Confederation, Equality Department, Mr Sipho Ndebele from the Government of South Africa and Mr Khulile Nkushubana, General Secretary of the Confederation of South African Workers Union. In total, there were more than 60 trade unions under the leadership of ITUC, together ! with GUFs such as PSI who had come to lobby for equal treatment regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, social status etc at the workplace. All of us firmly believed that there should be employment equity in terms of recruitment, wages and promotion etc.

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The Asia-Pacific Knowledge Network on Youth Employment (APYouthNet) is a community of practice that aims to connect youth employment experts from across the Asia Pacific region.

APYouthNet aims to bring together individuals engaged in designing and implementing policies and programmes which promote decent and productive work for young women and men. A lively network can benefit everyone. By sharing information and experiences we can better understand youth employment challenges in the region and work towards achieving decent work for young people.

APYouthNet is being launched within the framework of the Asian Decent Work Decade as part of the Asia-Pacific Knowledge Network on Decent Work.

Enter the portal, click here. Be participate, this website is based on the community practice and its members are the people in the region who’s work is dedicated to youth employment. Register your name and actively participated.

Contact Ms. Goy Phumtim, moderator/facilitator for the APYouthNet Portal: pornpenn@ilo.org or you can communicate directly with her through her skype: goy.phumtim

If we support and work with young people to realize their own dreams and aspirations we will realize growth and prosperity across Asia and the Pacific

Young people are an incredible source of energy and creativity. Still, although only one in five workers are between the ages of 15 and 24, this group accounts for almost half the region’s jobless.

While young people do face certain disadvantages in the labour market, for many of the young working poor, unemployment is an unaffordable luxury. They work hard, for long hours in poor conditions, on short-term and precari . ous contracts with not much prospects for the future. There is a cruel irony in the co-existence of child labour and youth unemployment: demand for certain types of labour that is met by children who should not be working, there is also a supply of labour from young people that goes unutilised. The youth employment challenge also linked to the spread of HIV/AIDs and cross-border and rural to urban migration placing enormous pressure on urban labour markets to find jobs for youth.  (source: ILO Asia and Pacific)

This below links, as part of Asian Decent Work Decade (ADWD) Resource Kit, please feel free to download:

• ADWD resource kit: introduction to the resource kit - [pdf 622 KB]
• ADWD resource kit: competitiveness, productivity and jobs - [pdf 845 KB]
• ADWD resource kit: labour market governance in Asia and the Pacific - [pdf 654 KB]
• ADWD resource kit: local development for decent work - [pdf 623 KB]
• ADWD resource kit: protecting migrant workers - [pdf 685 KB]
• ADWD resource kit: the youth employment challenge in Asia and the Pacific - [pdf 693 KB]

The global financial crisis could increase world unemployment by an estimated 20 million women and men, the Director-General of the International Labour Office (ILO) said today. “We need prompt and coordinated government actions to avert a social crisis that could be severe, long-lasting and global”, he added. Based on revised global growth estimates by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the UN and early reports suggesting rising job losses for most countries where data was available, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said the ILO’s preliminary estimates indicated that the “number of unemployed could rise from 190 million in 2007 to 210 million in late 2009.” Further information click here