Why
The digital economy is rapidly transforming the employment landscape across industries, including financial services, health, entertainment, transportation and of course, information and communication technologies (ICT). Millions of jobs requiring advanced digital skills will be created in the coming decade, but many countries are projecting a shortfall of skilled workers to fill these jobs. While young people are often considered “digital natives”, the reality is that the majority do not possess job-relevant digital skills. In particular, jobs requiring coding and other advanced ICT skills are going unfilled.
HOW
The growth potential of the digital economy presents an opportunity for tackling the youth employment challenge. In June 2017, the ILO and the ITU launched a campaign to bridge the current skills gap. The goal is to equip five million young people with digital skills – both basic and advanced – by 2030. This will be achieved by mainstreaming digital skills into school curricula, establishing comprehensive on-the-job training systems and mobilizing job creators in the public and private sector to employ young people in digital-centric jobs. There will also be a strong focus on fostering youth-led digital entrepreneurship.
WHO
The ILO and the ITU are committed to leading on this thematic priority. Decent Jobs for Youth brings together a growing number of partners who are committed to identifying and scaling up effective strategies for equipping young people with digital skills.
Create and Implement entrepreneurship
The ICSB Academy provides students with a full immersion experience in the making of a new entrepreneurial venture, while exposing them to the latest developments in entrepreneurship science under the mentorship of a global team of successful entrepreneurship experts (including entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, business experts, and faculty).
Scalable Technology Solutions for Youth Employment
Accenture and Save the Children share a vision for creating a more prosperous and secure future for young people. Their partnership equips youth with the skills they need to get a job or build a business and strives to train more than 58,000 young workers from 2017 to 2020, which contributes to Accenture’s Skills to Succeed corporate citizenship initiative goal of skilling 3 million people globally by 2020. Together, Accenture and Save the Children have created programming that reaches youth in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, and Vietnam.