Bringing youth into employment is one of the central issues to be tackled worldwide, especially in regions with a high proportion of youth like in the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. Roughly one third of the world’s youth are unemployed, looking for work or they are discouraged and therefore inactive (NEET = not in employment, education or training). The unemployment rate of youth on average is twice as high as that of adults, with an even higher rate of unemployment among young women. In general, young people are more vulnerable in times of economic crises and are disadvantaged on the labour market because they have less work experience. The risk of losing their job is also significantly higher for youth than for adults. Looking at labour markets, there are structural problems. On the one hand there is only a limited amount of decent and formal jobs available. On the other hand, the qualifications of young people often do not meet the requirements of the employers. Thus, vacant positions cannot be filled whereas at the same time a high number of young people do not find their way into employment. An important reason for this “mismatch” between labour demand and supply and likewise one cause for high unemployment rates among youth is the lack of effective job orientation and target group specific matching mechanisms on the labour market.
YouMatch is GIZ project that targets the link between labour demand and supply aiming to improve job matching for youth. Thereby, the initiative addresses the challenge of bringing youth and especially young women into sustainable employment and offering them long term prospects through innovative solutions. The regional focus of YouMatch lies on the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, where youth unemployment respectively underemployment are the highest in the world.
Within You Match has been organized training in ILO training center in Turin, for beneficiaries of the project during this week. The training had 4 thematic groups, and one related to local partnerships and innovative delivery of ALMP has been implemented by YEP experts Ranko Markuš and Alma Suljović. YEP has been recognized as success story worldwide, and there is huge interest for dissemination of its best practices.
