Peru: Peru: Promotion of employment and MSEs for Youth and Management of Juvenile Labor Migration

Despite achieving the highest average growth rate in Latin America over the last decade, Peru still struggles with inequalities, particularly among youth. While those with qualifications and skills have benefitted from the economic activity, many young people are jobless, and just over half say they would leave the country if given the opportunity. This Joint Programme sought to promote employment and microenterprise for Peruvian youth, and to manage their migration, by creating more and better opportunities for them to secure decent work. 

Through national and regional government bodies, other public offices and the private sector, the programme focused on youth in order to:

1. Increase the coverage and efficacy of job placement;
2. Channel better information about the labor market; and
3. Manage labor migration and lend technical assistance to Medium and Small Enterprises.

It also focused on young women, to ensure that their labor conditions are compatible with their reproductive roles. Youth benefited from a promotional framework and from strengthened institutions, which contributed to reducing the rates of urban unemployment and inactivity.

Main achievements included:

• Information generated by Surveys on Youth, Employment and International Migration were used for the design of interventions and operational approaches to youth employment and migration.
• Approval of the National Employment Policy, which includes a component on youth employment. The Sector Plan for Youth Employment was also approved and Arequipa and La Libertad adopted Regional Plans on Youth Employment.
• Constitution of the Roundtable for Youth Social Dialogue for Decent Work within the National Labour Council.
• Information was generated about the demographic dividend at the departmental level, as a key input for advocacy actions with regional governments for investment in education, health and employment of young people.
• Incorporation into the regular activities of the Ministry of Labour and Employment Promotion the Single Labor Certification CertiJoven. This streamlined job certification process had benefitted more than 7,500 young people when the programme closed in the spring 2012.  
• Creation of the Wawa Wasi Labor Pilot Program for young mothers, which certified a training program for successful integration into the workplace. Almost 440 young mothers had benefited by the time of the programme's closure. 
• Modernization of the Vocational Guidance and Occupational Information Service of the Ministry of Labor. This included proposals for a holistic approach to the assessment process and guidance for young people, both in person and virtually, which involved the creation of various computer applications, updating psychological testing and the incorporation of an additional test to assess entrepreneurial potential.
• Delivery of a course on international migration to civil servants.