Thinking Aloud: Volume III, Issue 11

The April, 2017 issue of Thinking Aloud comes with the theme of ‘youth employment’. The first article on “Does economic growth ensure youth employment?” emphasizes that economic growth is not a guarantee in tackling youth unemployment. There is a need for flanking policies, which should include actions from governments in the form of widening scopes and coverage of relevant training programs, supporting the sectors with high potentials for youth job creation, supportive fiscal and monetary policies for the promotion of youth entrepreneurship, targeted programs for the specific disadvantaged segments of youth population through skill-development and appropriate labor-market policies, and public-private partnerships, in collaboration with international organizations, for scaling up investments in decent jobs for youth. The second article on “Youth population and economic growth in Bangladesh: A macroeconomic analysis” investigates how growing proportion of youth population affects the GDP growth of Bangladesh in the long run. Analysis of the time series data from 1972 to 2014 reveals a statistically significant and positive correlation between the GDP growth rate and proportion of youth population, providing evidence of plausible positive impact of proportional increase in youth population on economic growth of Bangladesh. In this issue, SANEM interviews Dr. Ganga Tilakaratna, Research Fellow and Head of Poverty and Social Welfare Policy Unit of the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS), on the present high level of youth unemployment in Sri Lanka. Dr. Tilakaratna identifies the prevalent skill mismatch and a skewed preference towards public sector jobs as two of the main factors contributing to the high level of youth and graduate unemployment in Sri Lanka. The fourth page covers the events that took place in the month of March, 2017.