Brookings India hosted a Development Seminar on “Work in Progress: Improving Youth Labour Market Outcomes in Emerging and Developing Economies” with John Bluedorn, Senior Economist, IMF. 

Abstract: At about one-third of the working age population in the average emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) and with the majority of their working life laying ahead of them, youth are essential to economic development and growth. But EMDE youth face a daunting labor market the share of youth not in employment, education, or training (the NEET rate) is about 20 percent in the average EMDE, double the share in the average advanced economy (AE). Drawing in part on new analysis using macroeconomic and microeconomic “big” data, this talk will highlight key youth labor market challenges and how structural policies, including labour and product market reforms, can help.

Bio: John Bluedorn is Senior Economist in the Structural Reforms Unit of the IMF’s Research Department. Previously, he has been a member of the IMF’s euro area team in the European Department and worked on the World Economic Outlook, contributing to a number of chapters. Before joining the IMF in 2010, he was a professor at the University of Southampton and a British Academy Research Fellow at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Bluedorn has published on a range of topics in international finance, macroeconomics, and development, with an emphasis on empirical analysis. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Discussant: Radhicka Kapoor is Senior Fellow at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER).