EMPLOYMENT Asia’s youth struggle to find good jobs: World Bank

Young people across Asia are struggling to find good jobs, with many stuck in low-productivity work that the World Bank warns could strain social stability as frustrations fuel a global wave of youth-led protests.

- PHILIP HEIJMANS

The bank highlighted a persistent gap between younger and more experienced workers across several Asian economies in a regional economic update released yesterday, noting that one in seven young people in China and Indonesia are unemployed. It warned that the share of people now vulnerable to falling into poverty is now larger than the middle class in most countries.

"The employment rate is generally high, but the young struggle to find jobs," the World Bank wrote in a regional economic update published yesterday, adding that most people in Asia "who look for work find it." However, "many individuals in the region are in lowproductivity or informal jobs."