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.
Supporting evidence-based policies for youth
J-PAL’s mission is to reduce poverty by ensuring that policies are informed by scientific evidence. To ensure that scientific evidence translates into policy impact, we consolidate lessons we are learning from this evidence into short and actionable policy briefs, and present these lessons to decisionmakers. Through our partnership with Decent Jobs for Youth, we commit to producing at least three J-PAL-branded Policy Insights between 2024-2026 that can inform strategies to help young people succeed in the world of work. We will also present these insights to policymakers and practitioners during at least one ILO-hosted webinar or event.
Productive Inclusion of vulnerable young people.
The 1MiO initiative aims to create one million opportunities for skills development, employment, learning and apprenticeship for vulnerable young people aged 14-29. The target groups are: Ethnic-racial minorities Youth from urban and rural peripheries Indigenous peoples Refugees and migrants Adolescents with disabilities LGBTQ+ individuals Including Girls in STEAM Public school students Young mothers Victims of child labor