Youth Employment and Training Programs


Book Description

Do government-sponsored youth employment programs actually help? Between 1978 and 1981, the Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act (YEDPA) funded extensive programs designed to aid disadvantaged youth. The Committee on Youth Employment Programs examined the voluminous research performed by YEDPA and produced a comprehensive report and evaluation of the YEDPA efforts to assist the underprivileged. Beginning with YEDPA's inception and effective lifespan, this report goes on to analyze the data it generated, evaluate its accuracy, and draw conclusions about which YEDPA programs were effective, which were not, and why. A discussion of YEDPA strategies and their perceived value concludes the volume.




Youth Employment Programs in Ghana


Book Description

Unemployment and underemployment are global development challenges. The situation in Ghana is no different. In 2016, it was projected that, given the country’s growing youth population, 300,000 new jobs would need to be created each year to absorb the increasing numbers of unemployed young people. Yet the employment structure of the Ghanaian economy has not changed much from several decades ago. Most jobs are low skill, requiring limited cognitive or technology know-how, reflected in low earnings and work of lower quality. An additional challenge for Ghana is the need to create access to an adequate number of high-quality, productive jobs. This report seeks to increase knowledge about Ghana’s job landscape and youth employment programs to assist policy makers and key stakeholders in identifying ways to improve the effectiveness of these programs and strengthen coordination among major stakeholders. Focused, strategic, short- to medium-term and long-term responses are required to address current unemployment and underemployment challenges. Effective coordination and synergies among youth employment programs are needed to avoid duplication of effort while the country’s economic structure transforms. Effective private sector participation in skills development and employment programs is recommended. The report posits interventions in five priority areas that are not new but could potentially make an impact through scaling up: (1) agriculture and agribusiness, (2) apprenticeship (skills training), (3) entrepreneurship, (4) high-yielding areas (renewable energy†“solar, construction, tourism, sports, and green jobs), and (5) preemployment support services. Finally, with the fast-changing nature of work due to technology and artificial intelligence, Ghana needs to develop an education and training system that is versatile and helps young people to adapt and thrive in the twenty-first century world of work.




Your Money, Your Goals


Book Description

Welcome to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Your Money, Your Goals: A financial empowerment toolkit for social services programs! If you're reading this, you are probably a case manager, or you work with case managers. Finances affect nearly every aspect of life in the United States. But many people feel overwhelmed by their financial situations, and they don't know where to go for help. As a case manager, you're in a unique position to provide that help. Clients already know you and trust you, and in many cases, they're already sharing financial and other personal information with you. The financial stresses your clients face may interfere with their progress toward other goals, and providing financial empowerment information and tools is a natural extension of what you are already doing. What is "financial empowerment" and how is it different from financial education or financial literacy? Financial education is a strategy that provides people with financial knowledge, skills, and resources so they can get, manage, and use their money to achieve their goals. Financial education is about building an individual's knowledge, skills, and capacity to use resources and tools, including financial products and services. Financial education leads to financial literacy. Financial empowerment includes financial education and financial literacy, but it is focused both on building the ability of individuals to manage money and use financial services and on providing access to products that work for them. Financially empowered individuals are informed and skilled; they know where to get help with their financial challenges. This sense of empowerment can build confidence that they can effectively use their financial knowledge, skills, and resources to reach their goals. We designed this toolkit to help you help your clients become financially empowered consumers. This financial empowerment toolkit is different from a financial education curriculum. With a curriculum, you are generally expected to work through most or all of the material in the order presented to achieve a specific set of objectives. This toolkit is a collection of important financial empowerment information and tools you can access as needed based on the client's goals. In other words, the aim is not to cover all of the information and tools in the toolkit - it is to identify and use the information and tools that are best suited to help your clients reach their goals.




Building Effective Employment Programs for Unemployed Youth in the Middle East and North Africa


Book Description

Given the labor market challenges that countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are facing (notably high unemployment, prevalence of skills mismatches, low labor market mobility, and lack of formal employment networks), employment services could be a relevant policy instrument to assist unemployed individuals to find jobs. Despite high and increasing unemployment rates, employers in the region are facing difficulties to find workers whose competences and skills fit their employment needs. The study first surveys international best practices for the delivery of employment services and then reviews the provision of these services in a selected group of countries in the MENA region, with a focus on public provision through existing public employment agencies. Findings indicate public agencies in the region face many challenges for the effective delivery of employment programs, namely poor administrative capacity,system fragmentation, lack of governance and accountability, regulation bottlenecks, and flaws in program design. In order to help unemployed workers to obtain the competences required by available jobs, this study proposes a reform agenda based on the development of strong partnerships between public agencies, public providers, and employers for the design and implementation of flexible employment programs that respond to real employment needs. These partnershipss will need to be developed with strong governance mechanisms that make beneficiaries, private providers, and firms accountable for making sure that investments in employment programs lead to employment insertion. The book is directed to policy makers, practitioners, economists, and anyone interested in international best practices to promote a more effective delivery of employment services.




Youth Employment and Joblessness in Advanced Countries


Book Description

The economic status of young people has declined significantly over the past two decades, despite a variety of programs designed to aid new workers in the transition from the classroom to the job market. This ongoing problem has proved difficult to explain. Drawing on comparative data from Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, these papers go beyond examining only employment and wages and explore the effects of family background, education and training, social expectations, and crime on youth employment. This volume brings together key studies, providing detailed analyses of the difficult economic situation plaguing young workers. Why have demographic changes and additional schooling failed to resolve youth unemployment? How effective have those economic policies been which aimed to improve the labor skills and marketability of young people? And how have youths themselves responded to the deteriorating job market confronting them? These questions form the empirical and organizational bases upon which these studies are founded.




Protecting Youth at Work


Book Description

In Massachusetts, a 12-year-old girl delivering newspapers is killed when a car strikes her bicycle. In Los Angeles, a 14-year-old boy repeatedly falls asleep in class, exhausted from his evening job. Although children and adolescents may benefit from working, there may also be negative social effects and sometimes danger in their jobs. Protecting Youth at Work looks at what is known about work done by children and adolescents and the effects of that work on their physical and emotional health and social functioning. The committee recommends specific initiatives for legislators, regulators, researchers, and employers. This book provides historical perspective on working children and adolescents in America and explores the framework of child labor laws that govern that work. The committee presents a wide range of data and analysis on the scope of youth employment, factors that put children and adolescents at risk in the workplace, and the positive and negative effects of employment, including data on educational attainment and lifestyle choices. Protecting Youth at Work also includes discussions of special issues for minority and disadvantaged youth, young workers in agriculture, and children who work in family-owned businesses.




Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa


Book Description

"The series is sponsored by the Agence Francaise de Developpement and the World Bank."




The Black Youth Employment Crisis


Book Description

In recent years, the earnings of young blacks have risen substantially relative to those of young whites, but their rates of joblessness have also risen to crisis levels. The papers in this volume, drawing on the results of a groundbreaking survey conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, analyze the history, causes, and features of this crisis. The findings they report and conclusions they reach revise accepted explanations of black youth unemployment. The contributors identify primary determinants on both the demand and supply sides of the market and provide new information on important aspects of the problem, such as drug use, crime, economic incentives, and attitudes among the unemployed. Their studies reveal that, contrary to popular assumptions, no single factor is the predominant cause of black youth employment problems. They show, among other significant factors, that where female employment is high, black youth employment is low; that even in areas where there are many jobs, black youths get relatively few of them; that the perceived risks and rewards of crime affect decisions to work or to engage in illegal activity; and that churchgoing and aspirations affect the success of black youths in finding employment. Altogether, these papers illuminate a broad range of economic and social factors which must be understood by policymakers before the black youth employment crisis can be successfully addressed.