Employability

Becoming employment ready, uncovering opportunities

For the more than 280 million young people worldwide not in education, training, or employment,⁵ there are two main sides to economic exclusion.

Demand side: The first relates to the individual. While the rate of school completion has risen steadily over the past 30 years,⁶ many young people still lack the skills and confidence needed to enter and remain in decent employment. They’re also often unaware of how to plan for a secure, independent future.

Supply side: On the other hand, companies can struggle to find young people with the right balance of technical and soft skills. This tends to hit small and medium enterprises (SMEs) the hardest. While SMEs contribute to more than 50 per cent of employment worldwide,⁷ they often lack resources to invest in hiring young people.

To help bridge the gap, Futuremakers employability projects work with both young people and potential employers.

Across employability projects, we provide vocational training and upskilling and reskilling opportunities that support young people to become employment ready. Intensive activities are generally structured training projects. These are implemented by non-profit organisations across different markets; they teach participants skills such as resume writing and interviewing techniques. They also provide mentoring and career planning support as part of intensive activities.

On the employer side, we work with small businesses to connect them with qualified, employment-ready young people.

Key outputs and outcomes

Of the 296,419 young people reached, 185,606 participated in intensive employability activities between January 2019 and April 2023. Below are the key outputs and outcomes:

126,094 young people gained employment-related knowledge.
61,953 young people gained employment-related skills.
60,267 young people reported themselves to be employment ready.
37,559 young people have entered decent employment.
16,558 young people remained in decent work six months after project participation.
13,917 job opportunities were offered to young people by 3,848 employers.

Read more about our employability projects.

While the outcomes have been increasing in the recent measurement year, around 20 per cent of participants in intensive activities had entered decent employment as of April 2023. As we discuss in the section on lessons learned, we are working to improve this result, as well as the proportion of participants reporting themselves as employment ready.

An employability success story

Skills and confidence building in Zambia

Patrick was previously a struggling freelancer, lacking belief in his own professional abilities. But then he joined a Futuremakers employability project implemented by our partner Challenges Zambia. After professional management training, an enterprise placement, and ongoing mentoring, Patrick’s life is dramatically different.

He now has a job in project management and hopes to run his own business one day – something he feels empowered to pursue thanks to the network he built via Futuremakers.

Learn more about Patrick’s story here.

When you are taught that it is okay to fail, you have a certain confidence and courage to dare the unknown.

Patrick
Zambia