What can business do to help young people acquire the right skills to transition into good jobs?

Youth
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Panelists

Tahsinah Ahmed: Director, Skills Development Programme, BRAC
Ndung'u Kahihu: Executive Director, CAP-YEI
Augustine Malija: Young Researcher, East Africa Youth Think Tank
Debbie Phillips: Director, Head of Citizenship, UK and Europe, Citizenship & Reputation, Barclays
Richard Sandall: Private Sector Development Adviser, DFID
Dorothy Stuehmke: Program Officer, International Programs, Citi Foundation
Kelly Trakalo: Head of Learning Solutions, Career Development & Employability, Pearson
MarĂ­a JesĂşs PĂ©rez: Coordinator, Business Against Poverty Observatory, CODESPA, Spain
Brandie Conforti: Global Head of Development, JAWorldwide

Unemployment is a global problem, and young people are particularly badly affected. Youth unemployment rates are twice as high as for older workers. Around one third of global youth – over 620 million young people - are not in employment, education or training. This represents an enormous lost opportunity and has serious long-term impacts not only for those young people but also for their societies and economies. In countries where the population is getting younger there is an even more urgent need to create many more jobs for the growing number of young people needing decent work. It therefore comes as no surprise that accelerating youth employment is identified as a priority within the Sustainable Development Goals.

Youth unemployment is a complex problem with many underlying causes. Among them is the widely recognised fact that many young people lack the right skills to help them transition out of education and into a good first job, or onto vocational training courses or further education. Companies wanting to grow into new markets and wishing to recruit locally report that they often struggle to find suitable candidates with the right skills. This skills gap comprises not only hard skills, ranging from basic from numeracy and literacy to specific technical skills; but also so-called soft skills and attributes. For the private sector, a skilled workforce is critical to productivity, innovation and growth. Estimates suggest that globally up to 38% of employers cannot fill their vacancies due to a lack of the necessary skills.

This online discussion will focus on the following questions:

  1. What are the 21st century skills young people need to make a successful transition into good jobs? Are young people currently getting these skills? How does the situation differ between developed and developing countries, between cities and rural areas, between young men and young women?
  2. How can companies help young people to get ready for the world of work and to find good jobs? Who should they work with? Can you share examples of successful business-led programmes or innovative cross-sectoral / multi-stakeholder partnerships that help more young people acquire the right skills to find and keep decent work?
  3. How can involving young people in the design and delivery of skills programmes lead to better development solutions?

This discussion is part of a Challenge on Youth Employability with the UK’s Department for International Development, Pearson, Anglo American, Citi Foundation, Barclays and BRAC. The Challenge focuses on what business can do to help more young people find and keep decent work by helping them develop the necessary skills to transition successfully into good jobs. Drawing on the experience of Challenge Supporters and the Business Fights Poverty community, we are developing a guide for business and those wanting to work with business that will gather together key ingredients for a successful private sector approach to youth skills development. This online discussion will inform the development of the guide.

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What can business do to help young people acquire the rights skills to transition into good jobs

Youth employment benefits business in a manner that needs to capture the attention of businesses. Young people are part of what I call business growth. The young talents have the ambition, creativity and the endurance to work long hours as well as days to make production greater and enjoyable for consumers.

So, for businesses to help young people acquire the right skills to transition into good jobs or for me, I will say future needed jobs, there are series of measures that need to be in place.

- Businesses must understand that young people are not a burden

- That each support provided pays off in the profits they make out of the young talent creativity

- Business must endeavour to invest in university programs that built young talents

- Businesses must develop career development programs that train ambitious, talented and willing young men and women to excel

- Businesses must work with volunteers programs to identify talents

- Businesses must work with career development institutions to channel the way for open business initiatives that do not teach young people only money but ethics and human rights

- Human Resource managers must sit annually with young employees for frank discussions. This will allow them know what the young employee sees ahead. ( in many instances, especially in poor nations, young people take certain jobs based on the principle of survival, to keep this young talent focus, you need to discuss with them and help them reshape what they want)

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It has been reported that, about 43% of the global youth labor force is still either unemployed or working yet living in poverty ILO 2015. The ongoing research shows that after a number of years of improvement, youth unemployment is set to rise in 2016 and young people are extremely affected. In developed economies youth unemployment may be a result of many young people still in education process so their biggest challenge may be the quality of available jobs rather than finding a job. Given the level and quality and of education in these countries, youth are more likely to find the available jobs in the labor market below their expectations. In the developing economies this is not the case, trends shows that 31% of youth in low-income countries have no educational qualifications at all compared to 6% in lower middle-income countries and 2% in upper middle-income countries. In these nations, youth are still facing problems of underemployment, informal employment and working poverty.

The 2030 global Agenda Goal 8 emphasizes on youth employment and appeals for collective efforts in securing quality jobs for all. Therefore, it is not the role of governments alone to ensure decent work for youth but also the responsibility of the business sector which is actually the main actor in the demand side of the labor market. In developed economies where there is low unemployment rates, business companies may continue to develop new products and expand their business in order to create new job positions along with supporting on job skills training for new graduates. In high unemployment settings where basic skills is also a problem; business companies should support the skills development and capacity building programs (such as vocational training) as part of their social responsibility. They can also design and support apprenticeship programs where youth can learn before being fully employed.

It is clearly understood that with the current rapid changes in technology in patterns of work and employment relationship, as well as new forms of businesses, there is a need of constant adjustment to new labor market conditions in order to address skills mismatches. Instead of complaining on the technical and soft skills gap of young workers, Business Businesses should use part of their profit to continuously build and increase skills and capacity of their employees so as to meet the required competence. In addition, companies could invest in training few devoted youth from the labor market who will then mentor other youth joining the companies and increase efficiency. Increased innovations/new investment by the business sector is also highly needed to relieve the ongoing job crisis for the present generation as well as to ensure more decent jobs in the future.

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Thanks for your contribution Adeline and for articulating some of the pertinent issues impacting on the youth employability agenda. I hope you will join us for the live part of the discussion later today to find out what our excellent panel thinks about the best ways to overcome some of these barriers.
In the meantime, do you know of any examples of successful programmes involving the private sector that have helped shift the needle on the youth skills gap? We are keen to identify some great examples of best practice during our discussion.

Adeline Ajuaye said:

It has been reported that, about 43% of the global youth labor force is still either unemployed or working yet living in poverty ILO 2015. The ongoing research shows that after a number of years of improvement, youth unemployment is set to rise in 2016 and young people are extremely affected. In developed economies youth unemployment may be a result of many young people still in education process so their biggest challenge may be the quality of available jobs rather than finding a job. Given the level and quality and of education in these countries, youth are more likely to find the available jobs in the labor market below their expectations. In the developing economies this is not the case, trends shows that 31% of youth in low-income countries have no educational qualifications at all compared to 6% in lower middle-income countries and 2% in upper middle-income countries. In these nations, youth are still facing problems of underemployment, informal employment and working poverty.

The 2030 global Agenda Goal 8 emphasizes on youth employment and appeals for collective efforts in securing quality jobs for all. Therefore, it is not the role of governments alone to ensure decent work for youth but also the responsibility of the business sector which is actually the main actor in the demand side of the labor market. In developed economies where there is low unemployment rates, business companies may continue to develop new products and expand their business in order to create new job positions along with supporting on job skills training for new graduates. In high unemployment settings where basic skills is also a problem; business companies should support the skills development and capacity building programs (such as vocational training) as part of their social responsibility. They can also design and support apprenticeship programs where youth can learn before being fully employed.

It is clearly understood that with the current rapid changes in technology in patterns of work and employment relationship, as well as new forms of businesses, there is a need of constant adjustment to new labor market conditions in order to address skills mismatches. Instead of complaining on the technical and soft skills gap of young workers, Business Businesses should use part of their profit to continuously build and increase skills and capacity of their employees so as to meet the required competence. In addition, companies could invest in training few devoted youth from the labor market who will then mentor other youth joining the companies and increase efficiency. Increased innovations/new investment by the business sector is also highly needed to relieve the ongoing job crisis for the present generation as well as to ensure more decent jobs in the future.

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Yes, I have been witnessing companies like PWC, Microfinance institutions and commercial banks conducting pre-recruitment training programs in universities and college particularly in East Africa where I came from since when I was in my undergraduate studies. Some of the colleagues recruited into these programs are now at the managerial positions (not necessarily in the same company where they were initially employed) mentoring other youths. Many youth have been joining these companies without or with little skills, get trained while working and after sometimes they are also allowed to move to other companies if they wish so. But this has been done for those who have at least a diploma or university degree.The big challenge remain is involving the youth who has no formal education, but still industries can recruit and train them to do the production and marketing works that do not require sophisticated skills.

Hester le Roux said:

Thanks for your contribution Adeline and for articulating some of the pertinent issues impacting on the youth employability agenda. I hope you will join us for the live part of the discussion later today to find out what our excellent panel thinks about the best ways to overcome some of these barriers.
In the meantime, do you know of any examples of successful programmes involving the private sector that have helped shift the needle on the youth skills gap? We are keen to identify some great examples of best practice during our discussion.

Adeline Ajuaye said:

It has been reported that, about 43% of the global youth labor force is still either unemployed or working yet living in poverty ILO 2015. The ongoing research shows that after a number of years of improvement, youth unemployment is set to rise in 2016 and young people are extremely affected. In developed economies youth unemployment may be a result of many young people still in education process so their biggest challenge may be the quality of available jobs rather than finding a job. Given the level and quality and of education in these countries, youth are more likely to find the available jobs in the labor market below their expectations. In the developing economies this is not the case, trends shows that 31% of youth in low-income countries have no educational qualifications at all compared to 6% in lower middle-income countries and 2% in upper middle-income countries. In these nations, youth are still facing problems of underemployment, informal employment and working poverty.

The 2030 global Agenda Goal 8 emphasizes on youth employment and appeals for collective efforts in securing quality jobs for all. Therefore, it is not the role of governments alone to ensure decent work for youth but also the responsibility of the business sector which is actually the main actor in the demand side of the labor market. In developed economies where there is low unemployment rates, business companies may continue to develop new products and expand their business in order to create new job positions along with supporting on job skills training for new graduates. In high unemployment settings where basic skills is also a problem; business companies should support the skills development and capacity building programs (such as vocational training) as part of their social responsibility. They can also design and support apprenticeship programs where youth can learn before being fully employed.

It is clearly understood that with the current rapid changes in technology in patterns of work and employment relationship, as well as new forms of businesses, there is a need of constant adjustment to new labor market conditions in order to address skills mismatches. Instead of complaining on the technical and soft skills gap of young workers, Business Businesses should use part of their profit to continuously build and increase skills and capacity of their employees so as to meet the required competence. In addition, companies could invest in training few devoted youth from the labor market who will then mentor other youth joining the companies and increase efficiency. Increased innovations/new investment by the business sector is also highly needed to relieve the ongoing job crisis for the present generation as well as to ensure more decent jobs in the future.

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There are many and complex causes of this problem. But for Africa one that stands out is the mismatch between what skills and altitudes training institutions produce and what employers require. Thus we see a clear mismatch with many employers being forced to invest their own resources to train workers because the education system is not doing a good enough job. The root cause for this (again there are many) is the '3 E' silo system whereby Educators, Employers and Entrepreneurs largely function as three separate units that never meet – yet each is supposed to be dependent on the others product or service. We should start by doing all we can to break up this abnormal silo system. Let us start by basically demanding a role for employers in the classroom and for educators in the Industry. Once we get these two working together, solutions to the many other problems that form part of these complex issues will be found. Of course the question begs itself: How can this be done? Well, there are now tested models (though most of them small scale) that have demonstrated that this can be done, with fairly low cost and with very good learning/employment outcomes. Let us take a look at these and see which can be scaled up and encourage this to happen. Finally many governments in Africa are investing in demand driven approaches to skills training (CBET is one example) which require the same level of ideal Educators/Employers/Entrepreneurs partnership. Employers, through their industry groupings and other forums, should encourage these initiatives (and cross learning between people and countries) whenever they can.

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There is a direct relationship between increased employment and unemployment among young people and the availability of existing vacancies. In fact it is a natural and balanced relationship when there is an increase in the number of companies. The emergence of young hands is greater than the emergence of companies. In this case we see the need for the emergence of new sustainable companies.

Ornildo Cardozo e Gisele

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Good morning / good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the live segment of this online discussion on how business can best support young people’s transition into work.

I’d like to start by asking our Panellists to introduce themselves.

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Hello. My name is Brandie Conforti and I am the Global Head of Development at JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide. JA empowers young people to own their economic success. We do this by providing cutting-edge, experiential education in workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy. Working with nearly 500,000 volunteers each year, we put over 10 million youth – in over 100 countries – on a path to financial well-being.

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My name is Dorothy Stuehmke and I am a Program Officer with the Citi Foundation where I manage our international grantmaking portfolio. The Citi Foundation is focused on the economic empowerment of low income communities around the world in markets where Citibank has a presence. I am pleased to be joining today’s discussion to talk about the importance of investing in youth and their economic well-being, and the need to equip youth with the tools necessary to improve their employability and job readiness positioning in the 21st century economy.

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I am Richard Sandall, Private Sector Development Adviser in DFID Uganda. I’ve been with DFID 9 years, and in Uganda 3 years. As PSD Adviser I am responsible for designing and managing projects that are linked to business growth. In Uganda I oversee an agribusiness project, and recently finished a £10.5 million project in the poorer Northern region of Uganda that saw 30,000 people trained in business and vocational skills.

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Hi everyone! I am Augustine Malija, a young researcher of the East African Youth Think Tank program. We inform the MasterCard Foundation’s Youth Livelihoods Strategy through a qualitative research on, “Insights into Youth Economic Opportunities in East Africa. We do all this under the expertise of Restless Development, Uganda.

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Hi I'm Debbie Phillips, Head of Citizenship for UK and Europe at Barclays. I have been with the team for 15 years and have had the privilege of supporting a wide range of employability programmes during that time.

Between 2012 and 2015 we at Barclays supported over 5.7 million disadvantaged young people with skills.

We continue to recognise that across our geographies young people in particular are disproportionately unemployed and that by creating access to employment we can, not only help people gain employment but also help businesses get the skilled talent they need to grow.

At Barclays, we have an ambition to deliver Shared Growth: products and services that create societal and commercial value, not one or the other. This means that we’re investing not only in employability skills programmes and future of work research but we’re also working to create access to job opportunities in high growth companies and with scale up entrepreneurs.

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Thank you Panel. Let’s kick of straight away with our first question:

Q1: What are the 21st century skills young people need to make a successful transition into good jobs? Are young people currently getting these skills? How does the situation differ between developed and developing countries, between cities and rural areas, between young men and young women?

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Hi – I am Kelly Trakalo. I head up the Learning Solutions group within Pearson Education’s Career Development and Employability division. Pearson is committed to creating solutions that make learners more employable and recently issued a social innovation challenge across all employees (globally) to identify new learning solutions targeted at low-income learners.

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When one talks about employability, one invariably discusses how the socio-economic situation of the locality is and how the partnerships between companies and governments are working the development or even the eradication of poverty and the creation of new jobs. In these relations the struggle and the The survival of young people for new opportunities are intense and time becomes their greatest obstacle. The need to create programs and actions of immediate impact is an emergency need. These actions serve as tools for transition and mobilization for a new economic moment.

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Hello everyone, I am MarĂ­a JesĂşs PĂ©rez, coordinator of the Business Against Poverty Observatory, created by 5 leading Spanish companies Telefonica, BBVA, La Caixa, ENDESA and SENER with the support of IESE Business School and The Boston Consulting Group. From the Business Against Poverty Observatory in Spain we are currently ending a research about what business can do to tackle youth unemployment and to fill the skills gap.

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The world stands at the brink of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. A phrase coined by WEF Chairman, Klaus Schwab, it is a “technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another.” Yet globally, our educational system is by-and-large unprepared for this dramatic change which will define the workforce of the future. Indeed, the quality and relevance of education many times results in a skills mismatch with employer needs. JA is one of the largest global NGOs dedicated to reversing this trend by delivering experiential learning programs in financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship.

Specifically, JA is focused on helping young people develop soft skills, “a combination of interpersonal people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attributes and emotional intelligence.” Our model is also nimble and adaptable allowing us the ability to respond pedagogically to meet the needs of today’s employers. For example, JA is acutely aware that as the global economy grows more complex, youth that lack strong STEM skills combined with entrepreneurial competences will not be able to compete in the knowledge economy and employers will not be able to fill jobs to fuel their growth.

Additionally, delivery of these programs does differ whether the context is the developed or developing world. In the developed world, JA primarily delivers its programming in the classroom. Yet in the developing world, the JA model needs to meet young people wherever they may be, which many times is outside of school. This flexibility is especially important as the world works together to help address the growing refugee crisis, or reach existing rural populations. Our model must be able to adjust based on our audience, to ensure the curriculum is culturally relevant and meets the socio-economic needs of the youth we are trying to help.

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There is a mix of technical and soft skills that can help position young people to make a successful transition into the labor market. At the Citi Foundation, we are committed to empowering young people, specifically those from low-income communities. More specifically, we fund and co-design programs with community organizations that are providing young people with access to technical and soft skills, and perhaps even more important, the networks and connections they need to make the transition successfully into the 21st century job market. Through our programming, we are investing in helping youth foster the interpersonal, social, critical thinking and problem-solving skillsets to develop the type of well-rounded individual that is equipped to make a successful transition into employment.

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McKinsey published in 2013 the report “Education to employment: Designing a system that works” (mckinseyonsociety.com/education-to-employment) after surveying 8,000 education providers, youth, and employers across nine countries, focusing on the paths for skill development, with special attention to the mechanisms that connect education to employment.

In such report, they rank 12 key skills valued by companies for new hires: Work ethic, Team work, Oral communications, Hands-on training in discipline, Problem solving, Written communications, Creativity, Computer literacy, Theoretical training in discipline, Basic math, Leadership. These are skills required for a successful transition between education and employment.

According to our research, in the case of vulnerable young skills such as respect, commitment, discipline, punctuality, learning capacity, confidence, are very relevant for a successful entry of young people into a job.