Despite the encouraging data and despite the opening up of the economy, the rate of return of workers aged up to 34 continues to be significantly lower than expected • The reason - the preference for unemployment benefits
47.4% of job seekers.
Young people in the Employment Service Bureau
Photo:
Joshua Joseph
Despite the wide opening of the economy, the rate of return of young people to work is significantly lower than expected, according to data from the Employment Service.
Despite the opening of employment sectors in which young people are employed at a high rate, the age distribution of job seekers in March is the same as that recorded in February.
This means that young people do not return to work at the expected pace.
The rate of job seekers among young people remained at 47.4% in March, the same as in February.
Throughout the year of the crisis, the population of young people up to the age of 34 constituted about half of all job seekers. The employment service explains this by the fact that the industries that were significantly more affected by the closure policy were those in which mostly young people are employed, such as trade, leisure, recreation, culture and tourism. In addition, the Employment Service emphasizes that the sweeping extension of unemployment benefits until the end of June 2021, combined with the fact that these are jobs that qualify for unemployment benefits close to the salary level, lead to the fact that even when these industries return to activity, many of them are young Return to work.
Data published yesterday by the Employment Service on employment data for March 2021, broken down by age, show that during the month the number of jobseekers decreased by a total of 15% from February. This decline was reflected in the three main age groups: young people up to 34, aged 50-35 and aged 51 and over. However, as mentioned, although in March the corona restrictions were lifted and the employment industries in which young people were over-represented were opened almost completely, the rate of return to work of young people was lower than expected. As a result, the distribution of active job seekers in that month by age was almost identical to the distribution recorded in February, before removing the restrictions on the industries in which young people were overrepresented.
