World Youth Skills Day 15th July 2023

15^th July is World Youth Skills Day which celebrates the importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship (World Youth Skills Day | United Nations). The aim is to raise awareness of the importance of skills in addressing the challenges of youth unemployment in countries around the world by opening communication, reducing barriers to the world of work and providing quality training, especially to those not in employment, education, or training. The theme for this year is “Skilling teachers, trainers and youth for a transformative future” and highlights the essential role that teachers, trainers and other educators play in providing skills for youth to transition to the labour market and to actively engage in their communities and societies.

Young people may lack experience, both of specific types of work and of the culture of the workplace, but they have the potential to bring other qualities to a business. The business case for employing a young person is not just about immediate benefits, it is more about the return that employers can receive from a longer-term investment in their workforce. The range of benefits include:

• Lower recruitment costs – engaging with schools and colleges can also help attract good quality recruits by building a reputation that encourages young people to apply and thus widening the pool of applicants and reducing advertising costs.
• Cost effectiveness – wage costs of younger workers may initially be less than older workers before rising based on experience, qualifications and performance.
• Flexibility – young people can be flexible in terms of the hours they work and are more willing to move and work in different locations. Moreover, psychologically, young people appear to have an inbuilt optimism and ability to anticipate and adapt to change.
• Improving staff retention – staff turnover tends to be lower as people who have trained with a business are more likely to stay with that business.
• Willingness to learn – employers find younger people are more willing to learn. Young people brought up in the digital and internet age have a different approach to working life being more independent, flexible and adaptable to change.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) launched their new campaign One Million Chances to encourage employers to connect young people with the world of work through:

• Work experience – unpaid placements introduce young people to the workplace and increase their confidence and employability. Students can provide employers with a resource and skills that allow one off tasks to be undertaken for which the business does not have the time or resource, enabling employers to try out potential recruits.
• Apprenticeships – provide a cost effective way of recruiting and training young people to gain experience and qualifications to overcome skills shortages. They help ease the school-to-work transition by providing structured training pathways into skilled jobs. There is government funding to assist with the costs and can include current staff members as well as new recruits. More information can be found here Employing an apprentice: Get funding www.gov.uk.
• Internships – provide the first rung on the ladder to work for undergraduates or graduates (usually) seeking work experience. Students in sixth form colleges, further education colleges or other tertiary education are also included.

CIPD have produced a helpful checklist for employers to provide guidance and practical steps for engaging with these programmes, which can be downloaded here: Employers’ guide to youth employment and UK training programmes.

WorldSkills UK is an independent charity and a partnership between employers, education and governments and together they use international best practice to raise standards in apprenticeships and technical education so more young people and employers succeed. WorldSkills support young people across the globe via competitions-based training, assessment and benchmarking. They use the insights they gain from training as part of this global network to help raise standards across the UK. Thewlis Graham Associates are proud to have supported WorldSkills UK with recent assignments.

WorldSkills celebrates World Youth Skills Day via a range of activities and initiatives aimed at raising the profile and recognition of skilled people, showing how important skills are in achieving economic growth and personal success. Inspiring, educating, and developing youth is an integral part of this.

Lizzy Turek

Client Research Associate