Invest and Evaluate: a Landscape Guide to Youth Workforce Development Programs

yBy: Yvonne Thomas, Director of Global Citizenship & Public Affairs at Microsoft

In our rapidly changing, hyper-connected world, the information and communication technology (ICT) industry is driving economic growth, innovation, and job creation. More than 50 percent of today’s jobs require some degree of technology skills—and some experts say that will increase to 77 percent in the next decade—but many of the world’s youth don’t have the skills for these roles and will be unable to fill these jobs.

We set out to better understand the landscape of youth skills training programs and initiatives, especially those working to build the technology skills of youth as part of a broader program, and developed a framework, “Understanding the Youth Workforce Development Technology Skills Training  Landscape”, that we are releasing today in partnership with Making Cents International. The framework is a tool for understanding the unique role that education and training providers play in youth workforce development and how they fit together based on their primary training objective, market alignment, and measures of success.

We hope that this framework will be leveraged by practitioners, funders, youth leaders, government and others to foster a common language, greater cooperation, more partnerships and joint projects to increase the alignment of education and skills training efforts to employer needs, with the intent of an increase in youth economic opportunities.

Click here to read the study and find out more.

Tweet and share this report with those in your network who care about getting youth the right skills, and into jobs: #Microsoft and @MakingCentsIntl release toolkit for youth #workforce dev programs -- check it out! https://bit.ly/ysmcwdl14 #YouthSpark