Employers in the Kingdom need to draw up more contracts with their young workers to keep them from being exploited and left in the dark in case of a dispute, a youth NGO urged yesterday.

Cheang Sokha, director of the Youth Resource Development Program, said yesterday morning at a conference that youth in the informal sector who work in places like restaurants and car washes remain at risk of being exploited in low-paid jobs with little recourse for legal resolutions.

“Youths seem to have no method for solving problems between themselves and employers, they do not know how to do so,” Sokha said. “It is different from unions or workers who have a solution-finding mechanism.”

Sok Mean, the deputy director of the National Employment Agency, said that the Labour Ministry regularly launched workplace inspections to ensure employers carry out the Labour Law.

But Moeun Tola, head of the labour program at the Community Legal Education Center, said that youths in the informal sector themselves needed to organise to solve their problems.

The YRDP recommended youths create union-like organisations to demand higher salaries and ensure labour laws are followed.

According to a study of 408 youths in Phnom Penh released in September, the YRDP estimated that only 27 per cent of respondents had contracts with their employers.