YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

346 It is clear that a key source of informal learning today is the internet. How- ever, for the time being, young people are primarily using the internet to consume a variety of entertainment content, in particular to listen tomu- sic and visit social networks. There is a very noticeable growth trend in online shopping. Whereas ten years ago just under half of young people did so, today the figure is close to 90%. In a broader perspective, ICT use among young people is largely limited to basic tasks. In the EU context, Slovenia is in the bottom half in terms of the share of young people with computer programming skills. 1 Promoting more sophisticated use of ICT and strengthening ICT literacy are certainly among the most sensible pri- orities for education policy. Important shifts are also taking place for young people in the labour mar- ket. Official statistics show a clear downward trend in youth unemploy- ment. In 2010, the youth unemployment rate was 14.7%, and in 2019 it was only 8.1%. Since 2015, the share of employed young people in some form of flexible employment has also fallen significantly. In addition, the gap be- tween the competences acquired by young people and the demands of the workplace (the so-called skills mismatch) has been narrowing in recent years. Therefore, shifts for the better are happening. However, it is worth pointing out that these shifts are much smaller than the official data sug- gest. For example, if we look at the share of young people who perceive themselves as unemployed, there has been no reduction in the unemploy- ment rate at all over the last decade. In other words, the proportion of un- employed young people is falling according to the criteria of official statis- tics, but not according to the criteria of the young people themselves. It is particularly important that Slovenia still deviates significantly from the European average upwards in terms of the share of young people in precar- ious forms of employment. Over the last decade, there has also been a sig- nificant increase in the proportion of young people, who consider that they are underpaid for their work, that the work they do is boring, that the working climate is poor and that their rights are violated in the workplace. In the light of these facts, it can be concluded that the situation of young people on the labour market in Slovenia remains – despite the favourable economic trends of the last decade – relatively unfavourable. 1 However, it is worth noting that older generations have evenweaker knowledge in this case.