ENGLISH

To bring youth voices to the forefront of action and policy responses, the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth (DJY) and its partners including the International Labour Organization, the UN Major Group for Children and Youth, AIESEC, the European Youth Forum, the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa and the United Nations Human Rights Office are conducting a survey on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth rights, with a focus on employment and education. 

The survey targets young people from all regions, countries, and backgrounds; those actively engaged in economic activities across sectors and industries; as well as those that are in school and those not in employment, education and training (NEET). The survey results will be shared widely to help inform ILO constituents and Decent Jobs for Youth partners as they navigate these unprecedented times with a profound commitment to protect young people, their rights, voices and opportunities for decent work.

Please help us in distributing the survey to your young members and representatives as well as completing the survey yourself. You can distribute through the following channels:

• The survey, available in 15 languages, can be accessed here
• A social media campaign can be found on @DecentJobsYouth Twitter as well as @ILO social media channels. Please help disseminate the survey using our social media messages and graphics available here  
• Forward this email text via email to young people and youth organizations

Let’s fight this pandemic together.

Best regards,

FRANCAIS

Objet: Enquête mondiale sur les jeunes et COVID-19

Pour amener les voix des jeunes au premier plan de l’action et des réponses politiques, l’Initiative mondiale pour l’emploi décent des jeunes (DJY) et ses partenaires, notamment l’Organisation internationale du travail, le Haut-Commissariat des Nations Unies aux droits de l’homme, le Groupe Majeur des Nations Unies sur les enfants et les jeunes, le Fonds fiduciaire d’urgence de l’Union européenne pour l’Afrique, l’AIESEC et le Forum européen de la jeunesse mènent une enquête sur l’impact de la pandémie de COVID-19 sur les jeunes et le monde du travail.

L’enquête cible des jeunes de toutes les régions, pays et origines; ceux qui participent activement à des activités économiques dans tous les secteurs et toutes les industries; ainsi que ceux qui sont à l’école et ceux qui n’ont pas d’emploi, d’éducation et de formation (NEET). Les résultats de l’enquête seront largement diffusés pour aider à informer les mandants de l’OIT et les partenaires DJY alors qu’ils traversent ces temps sans précédent avec un engagement profond pour protéger les jeunes, leurs droits, leurs voix et les possibilités de travail décent.

Veuillez nous aider à distribuer le sondage à vos jeunes membres et représentants ainsi qu’à remplir le sondage vous-même. Vous pouvez distribuer via les canaux suivants:

• L’enquête, disponible en 15 langues, est accessible ici
• Une campagne sur les réseaux sociaux est disponible sur twitter @ilo et @decentjobsforyouth social media messages and graphics disponible ici  
• Transférer ce texte par e-mail à vos jeunes

ESPAÑOL

Los invitamos a participar y compartir ampliamente los siguientes productos con sus colegas jóvenes, redes juveniles y jóvenes beneficiarios. Ayúdenos a asegurar que las voces, ideas y agencia de los jóvenes se pongan a la vanguardia de la acción y las respuestas de política a la pandemia.

Toma la Encuesta Global Juventud y COVID-19: Diseñada en colaboración con el Grupo Principal de las Naciones Unidas para la Infancia y la Juventud, AIESEC, el Foro Europeo de la Juventud, la Oficina de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas, el Fondo Fiduciario de Emergencia de la Unión Europea para África y la Organización Internacional del Trabajo, esta encuesta tiene como objetivo (i) comprender el impacto de la pandemia sobre los derechos de los jóvenes, el empleo y la educación, e (ii) invitar las ideas y propuestas de los jóvenes para abordar la crisis. Los resultados se compartirán ampliamente para informar acciones de política al más alto nivel. Conoce más sobre la encuesta aquí.Ayúdenos a distribuir la encuesta a sus miembros y representantes jóvenes, así como a completar la encuesta usted mismo. Puede distribuir a través de los siguientes canales:

• La encuesta, disponible en 15 idiomas, se puede acceder aquí.
• Se puede encontrar una campaña de redes sociales en @DecentJobsYouth Twitter, así como en los canales de redes sociales de la @ILO. Ayude a difundir la encuesta utilizando nuestros mensajes de redes sociales y gráficos disponibles en Trello.
• Reenviar este texto por correo electrónico a jóvenes y organizaciones juveniles

Русский

Тема: Глобальное исследование по теме “Молодежь и COVID-19

В целях привлечения внимания молодежи к действиям и политическим мерам реагирования, Глобальная инициатива по созданию достойных рабочих мест для молодежи (DJY) и ее партнеры, включая Международную организацию труда (MOT), Основную группу ООН по проблемам детей и молодежи, AIESEC, Европейский молодежный форум, Чрезвычайный целевой фонд ЕС для Африки и Офис ООН по правам человека, проводят исследование о воздействии пандемии COVID-19 на права молодежи с особым вниманием на вопросы занятости и образования.

Данное исследование ориентировано на молодых людей из всех регионов, стран и слоев населения; тех, кто активно участвует в экономической деятельности в различных секторах и отраслях промышленности; а также тех, кто учится в школе, а также тех, кто не занимается профессиональной деятельностью, образованием и профессиональным обучением (NEET). Результаты обследования будут широко распространяться в целях содействия информированию членов MOT и партнеров по программе “Достойная работа для молодежи”, поскольку они, преодолевая эти беспрецедентные времена, проявляют глубокую приверженность делу защиты молодых людей, их прав, голоса и возможностей для получения достойной работы.

Пожалуйста, помогите нам распространить результаты опроса среди ваших молодых членов и представителей, а также заполнить анкету самостоятельно. Вы можете распространять опрос по следующим каналам:

• Доступ к анкете исследования на 17 языках можно получить здесь.
• Кампанию в социальных сетях можно найти в Twitter как @DecentJobsYouth, а также в социальных сетях МОТ. Пожалуйста, помогите распространить исследование, используя наши сообщения в социальных сетях и графики, доступные здесь. 
• Пересылайте этот текст по электронной почте молодым людям и молодежным организациям.

Давайте бороться с этой пандемией вместе.

С наилучшими пожеланиями,

We’re pleased to announce that the UN Sustainable Development Goals are the chosen topic for our 2020/21 Outstanding Case Writer: Hot Topic competition.

The topic

Cases submitted to this competition category can be in any business or management discipline, but must address a topic relating to one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

267 million young people are already excluded from employment, education, and training (NEET status), we can only foresee that, similarly to the 2008 economic crisis, young people will be forced into inactivity. This moment of unemployment and discouragement can threaten the long-term prospects of an individual’s career because of that person’s lack of access to professional and social skills, as well as valuable on-the-job experience.

Described as being most certainly ‘unprecedented,’ the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the vulnerabilities in every sector of life, especially that of the workforce. These times require a great force of sustainability and commitment to both our local and global communities. In hoping to move forward towards a global conversation, it is time to be aware and conscious of how deeply the coronavirus has touched the world. Affecting every single working person around the world (3.3 billion workers), we need to consider who amongst this population needs the most focus and assistance. COVID-19 has exposed our weaknesses and, thus, caused a decline in employment, working conditions, earnings and incomes, contractual arrangements, sales and profits, numbers of employees, business survival, business solvency, and voice and representation. Amongst the population of workers, young workers are widely the most significantly affected. Since youth labor market outcomes are highly sensitive to the business cycle, the impact of the pandemic will be worse for younger workers. We can expect to notice an increase in unemployment and poverty for those situated in the demographic of young workers.

Being strongly responsive to decreases in GDP, economic shocks, and typically burdened by the “first out” approach, young people are not in the best position to survive this storm. As working hours decline by 6.7%, the global community realizes that young workers and, especially, young entrepreneurs may not have the experience nor strategies to cope with this scale of a crisis. Currently, three-fourths of workers are in some sort of informal employment position, which makes them ‘highly susceptible to aggregate demand shocks, lockdown, and contagion.’ With our current lack of social protection, in addition to limited access to healthcare services and income replacement during periods of illness, this pandemic will most certainly affect the typical activities of informal workers, specifically younger workers.

Before the coronavirus, young people were overrepresented in wholesale and retail, trade and accommodation, and food services sectors. These being the most heavily impacted sectors, young people can only expect that these changes will turn into lay-offs and lower earnings. The current situation provides limited opportunities for those young workers in the informal economy, while additionally, creating awkward conditions for young people outside the workforce.

As the combined population works to shift into new paradigms of being and doing, organizations around the world are creating frameworks to advocate and stimulate for survival and eventual advancement. To promote ‘job-rich inclusive growth,’ we must focus on ‘stimulating the economy and employment; supporting enterprises, jobs and incomes; protecting workers in the workplace; all while relying on the exchange of social dialogue to provide solutions’ (ILO). With the goal being to promote enterprises, employment, and incomes, nations must intervene on the levels of supply, intermediation, and demand. Specifically, it is necessary to provide social protection for all, to be open to different types of financial and non-financial support, to protect formal jobs, and to support and secure the lives and livelihoods of those working in the informal economy. In the Small Matters study, conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO), it was found that seven out of ten available employment opportunities are created by small to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, we need to uphold the needs of these businesses so that they might support their community’s employment needs.

As Susana Puerto, coordinator for the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth from the ILO, perfectly articulated, we must commit to each other in a time such as this. Governments and enterprises which work to be informed by their citizens’ and employees’ needs will succeed in promoting humane work opportunities for all.

From Sudden Crisis to Prepared Planning:

This moment of connected isolation has changed everyone’s plans from cancellations to postponements. We have re-envisioned and amended our preconceived ideas about learning, teaching, working, and producing. It has only been through acceptance of our new normal that we have found the encouragement and creativity necessary to critically reflect, in a way that allows us to reimagine our current capacities, capabilities, and preconceived pedagogies. In doing so, our new normal will hopefully become something more than what must be, and it instead transforms into something better, an environment that cares and supports all its actors.

As we recognize the absoluteness of our current situation, there has never been a better time to tease apart our current system, to identify our strengths, and to eventually rebuild our new, more reliable, and more expansive community. In thinking about entrepreneurship and innovation during this changing time, educators, researchers, practitioners, and learners must decide what needs to be amended in our current pedagogies of entrepreneurship that will eventually allow us to create more prepared entrepreneurs appropriately. That is those ready to learn and adapt to the world’s pressing and ever-changing challenges. Thinking about entrepreneurship as a contact sport, the game starts with engagement, a general desire to play; however, after, students need to understand the language, tools, concepts, and theories that underlie the rules of the game. We can start to demonstrate, then, that it takes more than just an entrepreneurial mindset. The skills to act on our ideas and passions, in addition to the guidance to respond appropriately to the demands of creation and innovation are essential.

In clarifying the true essence of an entrepreneurial educator, the focus moves from the possibility of teaching someone to be an entrepreneur if the entrepreneur is open to learning. The idea is that educators are not creating a passion for their students, but instead, they are fueling it and guiding it. Educators are looking for students who have the desire, the “fire in their belly,” to help them develop their skill sets, professional networks, and frameworks to think about complex entrepreneurial matters as mentioned by Professor Alex DeNoble from San Diego State University. As the entrepreneurial path includes many assumptions and, often, very little knowledge supporting these expectations and beliefs, it is only those who behold an entrepreneurial spirit that will survive the unraveling of their assumptions. This is the determining point of an entrepreneur, one that makes disappointments into their ending or those who transform these missteps into their reassessment and continue with a new lense.

In looking at the California Entrepreneurship Educators Conference, a local conference that, after its creation, attracted quite an international community, one understands the embodiment of entrepreneurial spirit. Initially, this conference would be canceled because of the travel limitations put in place due to the current pandemic. However, by recognizing the strengths that this crisis has created, for example, the public’s newly-found, general comfort in engaging online, we can reimagine a conference that is not only transmitted online, but that is enhanced upon. After a year of preparation, the solution is not to postpone or cancel the conference, but to host a better conference online. Therefore, the essential topics and the constant learning that takes place during this conference transforms with its platform.

In setting limits on entrepreneurs, we are only giving them a more significant opportunity to create and innovate. As Dr. Alex DeNoble, Professor at San Diego State University, and Dr. Ayman El Tarabishy, Deputy Chair of the Department of Management at the George Washington University, converse, they challenge each other to further develop upon their initial responses. As the two professors, both active in their local and global communities’ work for entrepreneurial studies and right, describe their questions, they end the discussion at a crossroad, one at which they are excited about the future while remaining informed by the past. In hopes of amplifying the academic perspective, they promote the entrepreneurial spirit, which seeks to thrive in the face of limitation. By recognizing the strengths of their communities and others, this conversation acted only as a predecessor to the conversations that occurred at the 2020 California Entrepreneurship Educator Conference.