1 Global youth
joblessness headed to 12.8% (Katie Allen & Phillip Inman in The Guardian) Young
people are giving up on the search for work depriving society of a generation
of skilled workers, a report by a UN agency has warned. It revealed global
youth unemployment has risen to near its crisis peak and predicted it will keep
rising over the next five years. The report by the International Labour Office
also warned of the social unrest risked by large swaths of the young population
out of work and highlighted a rise in the number of young people neither in
employment nor in education or training, the so-called Neet group.
The ILO said the
youth unemployment rate, which had been falling after hitting 12.7% in 2009,
has climbed this year to 12.6%, and the rate – which covers those aged between
15 and 24 – is forecast to reach 12.8% by 2018. Painting a grim picture for
school leavers and graduates across large parts of the world, the ILO said
young people continue to be almost three times more likely than adults to be
unemployed.
The ILO report
stressed that for those young people who do find work, the outcome is often far
from ideal – damaging the prospects of both the individuals and the wider
economy. Increasing numbers are having to settle for part-time work or for
temporary jobs. Informal employment among young people remains pervasive and
skills mismatch on youth labour markets has become a "persistent and
growing trend" with both over-education and over-skilling as well as
under-education and under-skilling.
2 Asia wrestles
with a flood of cash (Alex Frangos in The Wall Street Journal) Central banks in
Asia, Australia and New Zealand are ratcheting up moves to deal with an influx
of capital that is keeping currencies strong and complicating efforts to manage
growth. New Zealand's central bank said it intervened in foreign-exchange
markets to blunt the rise of its currency and would continue to do so, after
Australia's central bank cut interest rates to a record low and noted the
stubborn strength of the Australian dollar. Elsewhere, China is moving to curb
bets on the rising yuan, while Thailand is considering efforts to curb the
strongest baht since the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
In a surprise
move, South Korea cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, as the
country grapples with a slowing economy. The cut in borrowing costs comes a day
after a government official voiced concern about "one-sided" moves in
foreign exchange, code for a rise in the value of the currency.
The surging
flows to the region are one more example of how investors are scouring the
globe looking for higher returns on their money. Many central banks in the
developed world are pumping in money in a bid to spur their economies, sending
interest rates down and money flowing into alternative investments. "Asia
is still where the growth is, relatively speaking. It's quite clear where the
money will go. Asia is benefiting from that front," said Craig Chan,
foreign-exchange analyst for Nomura in Singapore.
Information from
data provider EPFR Global shows that investors have added nearly $7 billion to
Asian emerging-market bond mutual funds this year, similar to capital inflows
that occurred in 2010. A World Bank analysis of flows to emerging markets
globally shows an increase through April of 42% from a year earlier, to $64
billion.
2 Why one should
cook (Mark Bittman in The New York Times) It’s been 40 years or more since
cooking went out of style for most Americans, and a positive approach to it —
one that encourages cooking and counters the ongoing marketing surge that
helped make it seem so “unnecessary” — could help to change matters. And
although that kind of approach can be effective with anyone, it’s bound to be
most effective with kids, who haven’t yet been fully brainwashed to believe
that there are better ways to spend their time than cooking — like watching
television, for example! Children are probably more likely to develop healthier
eating habits if their parents cook, and there are countless reasons it pays to
cook for your kids.
Enter ChopChop,
a magazine founded in 2010 by the Boston-area food writer Sally Sampson, which
bills itself as “The Fun Cooking Magazine for Families,” but is clearly aimed
at kids. Last week, ChopChop was named “publication of the year” by the James
Beard Foundation. It would have gotten my vote; it glorifies simple food and
the ease with which it can be prepared.
Sampson says she
wanted to address obesity but “didn’t have the skills to do health care.” So
she thought of creating a publication that would encourage pediatricians to
prescribe cooking, which would seem to be among the best measures a doctor
could take to encourage good health in young patients. That idea became
ChopChop, whose goal is to get kids to cook.
The magazine has
grown to a circulation of 500,000, with 20% printed in Spanish. About 50% of
the print run is sent to subscribers; the rest is given away at pediatricians’
offices and, says Sampson, “wherever else you find kids.” There are no ads,
although there are sponsors and, as you’ve probably guessed, ChopChop is a
nonprofit.
If you ask me,
Sampson has reached her goal: she’s doing preventive medicine. Because cooking
reduces obesity and reducing obesity reduces disease. Get a couple of hundred
thousand kids cooking now and who knows what might happen in 20 years?
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