Abstract:
Now days, the growth of youth unemployment is one of the critical socio-economic problems facing Ethiopia. It creates many economic and social problems in the economy. The intensity of the problem is high in urban areas in general, Ijije town in particular where youth face serious difficulty in getting employment. Despite the severity of urban youth unemployment worsens overtime in Ethiopia; researches done on the area are scanty. The main objective of this study is to identify and examine the demographic and socio-economic determinants of urban youth unemployment in Ilu Galan Ijije town, East showa Zone of Oromia Region. To achieve the objectives of the study, both primary and secondary data sources were used. The primary data was collected from 261 sample respondents through structured questionnaire from two kebeles of the town proportionally. To supplement the primary data, secondary data was also gathered from published and unpublished sources. In order to achieve the objectives of the study employed both descriptive and inferential analysis. The study found that 77.2% of the respondents are unemployed while 22.8 % of them are employed. In the case of inferential analysis binary logit model was used. The binary logit result revealed that 2 of the explanatory variables were found significant determinants of urban youth unemployment; of which, Access to credit service (Cr) and Job preference, affects unemployment positive and significantly . Hence, efforts should be made to reduce the level of unemployment by increasing job opportunity for those educated but unemployed youths, as well as financial resources should be invested in youth employment promotion in the study area for job seekers.
