World Youth Skills Day: Equipping young people with skills for employment

The pandemic emerged as an extraordinary challenge globally upending millions of lives, livelihoods and most importantly the employment rates. Alongside employment rates the pandemic had diverse implications on the job opportunities where some sectors observed surge in hiring demand while other faced declined hiring demand. An ILO global report on Youth & COVID-19: Impacts on jobs, education, rights and mental well-being, informs us of “the impact of pandemic on young people to be systematic, deep and disproportionate”.

As a silver-lining, the pandemic offers an opportunity to engage with new groups of learners and to re-engage those whose training has been interrupted due to the pandemic. Youth who might have dropped out of the education system during COVID-19 school closures might be attracted by the shorter and more applied nature of training. Workers who were furloughed or laid off during COVID-19 business shutdowns may also look towards reskilling or upskilling opportunities to support transitions to new jobs.

Since inception, Generation has supported thousands of young learners to find better employment opportunities leading them to sustained career pathways. Our unique seven-step methodology with its comprehensive approach has succeeded in preparing the learners with essential workplace skills thereby ensuring successful placement results for young learners.

Our methodology’s components such as ‘Social Support’ provides mentorship support to the new workforce entrants (during the first 3 months of employment) ensuring enhanced employment retention rate. Our experience so far has given us positive results such as, 61% of employment retention for our graduates post one year of employment. The employers too have shared positive feedback for Generation graduates.

In order to address the exacerbated youth employment rates and achieve the inclusive economic recovery, the supporting systems must be reimagined to adjust the current transition, needs and challenges. Acting on the surge in unemployment requires reaching numerous young adults quickly, moving them into sectors with high growth and demand, such as healthcare and technology.

Generation’s work becomes more relevant now than ever before given the pandemic crisis the world has been posed to. Generation is a platform for young individuals to learn the exact skills they need, taught by our best mentors through our blended learning programs. Generation emphasizes skills-based hiring. Our graduates are more likely to get hired with their skill badges when applying to relevant jobs. Before our graduates start working, Generation ensures they understand what the role requires as entry-level roles can present unique challenges.

As we manoeuvre through these unprecedented times, we continue to build a platform bridging talent and opportunities. In the next two years, Generation will train more than 30,000 young learners in India. Through the support of our government partners and donors, we help learners transition into life-changing careers. These steps will further enable a concrete contribution to the economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. A great opportunity is opening to reimagine, re-set, and rework Indian skills development systems.