Intern SARD/SAHS - 1316 (South Asia Department) - ADB - Manila, Philippines

Closing Date: 13 February 2013 , 5:00 p.m. (1700 Manila Time, 0900 GMT)

Job Purpose:

Internship Topic
Persistent Youth Unemployment in South Asia: Education Policy Implications


Summary of Job Description
Youth unemployment and underemployment resulting from skills and labor market mismatch in South Asia are major challenges to sustainable and inclusive economic growth. For the last two decades, almost half of the world’s unemployed youth are in Asia (45.3% in 2011), accounting for about 33.7 million unemployed young Asians. Nearly 40% of these youth are in South Asia where the youth unemployment rate looms around 10%. The growing group of employable youth in South Asia is potential for either a “demographic dividend” or a lost opportunity for a nation’s economy. Population is only one necessary element to capitalize on the potential, but also integral are appropriate education and labor policies and incentive structures to prepare and absorb these entrants into the labor market. Informal labor, unsafe or low-skilled jobs, attitudes towards vocational jobs, and borderless labor migration are all additional challenges.
There is a need to empirically assess macro-level trends and factors of both demand and supply for youth employment in South Asia, including skills levels and sectors from where youth labor are sourced. For example, poor countries supply low level skills often to middle income countries. Skilled workforce tends to come from countries that have developed education, skills development, and TVET systems with internationally-recognized standards, assessment systems, and quality assurance systems. Accessing middle and high levels skills is quite difficult for many South Asian countries where countries with recognized standards and quality assessment tend to dominate. The challenge is to identify why and in what ways this can change in an education policy framework.

Expected Outcomes

• A summary manuscript and a larger report that documents all relevant literature review, data, methodology, results and discussion.
• Two powerpoint presentations (one internal and final one external).

Educational Requirements:

Candidates must:

• be enrolled in a Masters or PhD program in Economics, Demography, Public Policy, Administration, International Development with a strong focus on labor issues and/or skills development, at a school in one of the ADB member countries, both prior to and after the internship assignment; and
• be engaged in academic study in a field directly related to ADB's work.

Relevant Experience And Other Requirements:

Extensive experience working on labor issues preferably in South Asian region. Strong writing and statistical analysis skills.

Core Competencies:

Candidates must be able to:

• exhibit professionalism in the conduct of his/her project tasks.
• analyze data and recommend solutions.
• be self-directed.
• build professional relationships to achieve results.
• prioritize work to achieve assignment outcomes.
• experience in statistical packages.

Immediate Reporting Relationships / Other Information:

Other Information

• Position reports to assigned Professional Staff Supervisor.
• Candidates must be a national of one of ADB’s member countries.
• Past interns are ineligible to apply in subsequent years.
• Close relatives of ADB personnel are ineligible to apply but ADB spouses may apply if the eligibility requirements are met.
• Internship duration is minimum of 8 weeks.
• Assignment is from end of April to June 2013.

[ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS]
1. Submit your CV by uploading in “Documents” section in the application; and
2. Answer essay questions below in MS WORD or PDF document, maximum of 1500 words per question. Upload in "Documents" portion in
the application.
ESSAY QUESTIONS
(1) Describe one example of your experience that demonstrated your interest in working in ADB.
(2) Highlight your qualifications that will help accomplish this internship assignment (e.g., course work, research, work experience,
etc.).

Non-submission of CV and essays will deem application INCOMPLETE and WILL NOT BE PROCESSED FURTHER.

Important Instructions

Queries can be directed at adbintern.org

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