Every young person deserves the chance to leave education feeling excited about what comes next.
And every employer wants to find talented young people with the skills to thrive in the workplace.
Yet too often those two ambitions never meet.
Young people are entering one of the fastest-changing labour markets in history.
Employers increasingly need digital, technical and transferable skills, yet many education and training providers are struggling to keep up.
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape industries, the gap between the skills that employers need and the skills that many young people leave education with is widening. This means the transition from education to employment is becoming harder for many young people, while businesses face growing talent shortages.
While nearly seven in ten employers report difficulty finding people with the skills they need. By 2030, more than half of young people globally are projected to lack the skills needed for employment.
In 2018 Theirworld’s Business Coalition for Education established the Youth Skills Commission to research why employers were struggling to find skilled talent while millions of young people remained locked out of decent work. Working with business leaders, policymakers, and youth experts, the Commission’s findings gave birth to the Accelerator – an innovative, networked model that connects businesses, local organisations, educators, and public sector partners.
By strengthening existing community ecosystems rather than duplicating them, the Youth Skills Accelerator network builds effective pathways into decent work and provides employers with the diverse talent they need.
One Accelerator participant is Hopeworks, a social enterprise in New Jersey working with young adults aged 17–26 facing significant barriers to employment. CEO Dan Rhoton says: “The Accelerator brought us the best and the brightest in a way that really expanded our network and our ability to learn.
The Accelerator brought us the best and the brightest in a way that really expanded our network and our ability to learn.Dan Rhoton, CEO, Hopeworks
For participants like Henry, the support provided by the organisations who are part of the Accelerator, can be life changing. After finishing high school and a year of college, he found himself in “an endless cycle of food service jobs and life roadblocks” – before joining Hopeworks.
In less than a month, Henry’s interest in coding led to him gaining a place as a Software Engineering Intern with BeiGene Pharmaceutical Company: “I had no confidence in myself and thought I wasn’t smart enough to code or build a website. Without Hopeworks believing in me, I wouldn’t have been able to make things happen.”
The results speak for themselves. Participating community-based organisations have expanded their work and helped more young people enter jobs and apprenticeship programmes. And we have been approached by new partners to replicate the model in other regions around the world.Justin van Fleet, President of Theirworld
