The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released its global employment projections, and while concerns in many places relate to the aging of the population, for countries like Costa Rica, it includes a warning regarding youth.
Costa Rica is among the group of nine nations where the number of young people between 15 and 29 years old who neither study nor work (nicknamed “ninis”) exceeds 15%.In the opinion of the OECD, this represents “a significant waste of potential talent.”
The countries on alert are:
The focus is on challenges such as the emergence of technologies that could complicate their entry into the labor market.”Young people have borne the brunt of current intergenerational disparities and face potential competition from AI for entry-level jobs,” the report states.
As recommendations, the OECD insists on the need to reduce the percentage of “ninis” (ninis). To achieve this, it points to comprehensive policies that include educational improvements, reducing school dropout rates, more training opportunities, and job entry plans.
OECD also focuses on women’s employment
By breaking down the issue of employment by gender, the OECD offers a two-way reading for Costa Rica.On the positive side, it points out that, along with Lithuania, these are the two countries with the greatest reduction in the gender employment gap in the last two years. “This shows that women benefited considerably from the recovery of employment in these countries during these periods,” they note.However, the accumulated gap is still an issue that needs to be addressed and could generate positive economic impacts.
Closing the gap
Overall, closing this gap could increase annual GDP per capita growth in the OECD by 0.2 percentage points. The figure could rise to 0.3 points in countries with a higher gap, including Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Greece, Italy, and Turkey.In general terms, the OECD report recognizes the employment recovery recorded in Costa Rica after the pandemic and its subsequent evolution.
