How COVID-19 affects the labor market for young people
April 15, 2021
Professor Jean Yeung (NUS Centre for Family and Population Research and Sociology) was featured in Zaobao, where she discusses how COVID-19 affects the labor market for young people. She remarks that early unemployment in one’s career has a “scarring effect” that leads to poor career trajectories. Young people are more likely to be unemployed again later, and their earnings are often lower than others who did not experience such a bad social event like the COVID-19 related recession). The negative economic and psychological impact hinders their success in transitioning to adulthood, affecting their capacity to establish their own household, marry, and parent in the future. In this way, COVID-19 has a long-term negative impact on the current generation of young adults that will be affected by the length of the recession and social distancing.
The Singapore government has responded by rolling out the SGUnited traineeship and the SkillsFuture movement for training young adults in new skills and helping them find jobs. Prof Yeung thinks these are great strategies to mitigate the negative impact of this group of young adults. She adds that we should pay attention to young people’s mental health, whether they can transition smoothly from school to the labor market, or will need to pursue alternative career paths.
Read the article here.
