Are the Miserable of the Earth Aware of Davos? Part I: The Nation of Millions of Jobless Youth

One of these questions is: are the world’s 200 million unemployed people, of which over 70 million are youth, aware of so many theoretical discourses and even where this Davos is?

Most likely they are not. And even if they were, do they expect real, fair solutions to the their tragic lives –and bleak future– from such a luxury gathering of the world’s richest and most powerful elite?

And what about the 250 million migrants and refugees that are easy prey to human smugglers and traffickers?

Let alone the could-be one billion climate migrants and refugees who would be victims of the harsh impact of a climate change none of them has contributed to generating?

Anyway, here is a set of key facts that you may need to know, given that you live in this very planet.

The Lost Generation

The facts are self-explanatory. And they are staggering: young people are estimated to account for over 35 per cent of the 200 million unemployed population worldwide in 2017.

Moreover, between 1997 and 2017, the youth population grew by 139 million people, while the youth labour force shrank by 35 million people.

This dynamic is also reflected in a declining youth proportion of the overall global labour force, from 21.7 per cent to 15.5 per cent.

These facts, which have been recently presented by the International Labour Organization (ILO), go further telling that the youth labour force participation rates have deteriorated in the past 20 years from 55.0 per cent to 45.7 per cent.

As a first conclusion, an estimated 70.9 million young people are unemployed globally in 2017.