- Young people building the future has a lot of potential
- The effectiveness of the implementation of Youth Building the Future is not measured
By: Abel Martínez Luna
Quiahuitl Chávez Domínguez, Undersecretary of Employment and Labor Productivity of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, assures that “work is already underway on an established generation that will lead the transformation in the coming years.”
The government has spent 115 billion pesos on the Youth Building the Future program, which has 2.9 million beneficiaries.
But are there results?
According to the Superior Audit of the Federation, in 2019 the program was born without diagnosis, without objectives, without operating rules.
It would train those who neither studied nor worked for work.
Roberto Iván Piedra Ascencio, master in Public Policy, points out “The component is designed first and then the entire theory of change of the program is built around it and that logic is incorrect.”
Until 2021, the government clarified that there were 5.7 million without studying or working and set the goal of including 2.3 million (40%) in productive activities.
If we only take that objective, training and giving money, the goal was exceeded 26%.
In the fight once morest poverty, the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL) considered that the program “strongly” addresses access to work, health and food.
In 2019, 3,600 pesos were delivered monthly, a figure that doubled.
Claudia Verónica Iraís de la Cruz Alanís, beneficiary, says “it gave me the opportunity both financially and personally to support my family and cover my personal expenses.”
For Piedra Ascencio, “this program has a lot of richness and a lot of potential, but given its main indicator of effectiveness, it does not seem to have that potential.”
Experts affirm that beyond social support, success must be measured with the percentage of young people hired.
The Ministry of Labor indicates that it does not have this statistic and that it was not the objective, but it highlights it.
Marath Baruch Bolaños López, Secretary of Labor and Social Security, highlights “we went from the first years of having a placement rate of just over 40% to now more than 60%.”
This data derives from a survey by INEGI in 2022 of 468 beneficiaries and contrasts with one by CONEVAL of 69 thousand beneficiaries in 2021, where employability is 35%.
According to IMSS data, in 2018 young people represented 33% of workers, a figure that fell to 30%.