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Digital disruptions are untapping the power of technology and unleashing economic value across countries and sectors. They are creating employment opportunities that increasingly rely on the digital skills available, the labour intensiveness of digital technologies, and the environmental factors that support digital entrepreneurship and industry-related supply chain development.
The steady pace towards digital transformation holds enormous promise to address the youth employment challenge; a challenge that today translates into two out of every five young women and men across the world being unemployed or working but living in poverty.
“The clock is ticking”, says Guy Ryder, the Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO), and “we need to act urgently to address this drama, to take advantage of the demographic dividend, while it is still possible”.
Tapping on the growth potential of the digital economy and demonstrating an unparalleled commitment to the promotion of youth employment, the ILO and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) launched a campaign to equip young people with digital skills conducive to decent jobs.
Unveiled under the auspices of the World Summit on the Information Society Forum held in Geneva on 12-16 June 2017, the campaign seeks to advance the objective of the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth to scale up action and impact on youth employment at country and regional levels.
The Global Initiative is the first United Nations system wide effort for the promotion of youth employment worldwide. It represents a unique collaboration platform to join hands – within and beyond the UN system – to tackle the youth employment challenge and assist Member States in targeting a crucial goal of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The campaign “Digital Skills for Decent Jobs for Youth” aims at mobilizing investments to equip five million youth with digital skills globally and by 2030. This ambitious goal will be achieved by forging action-oriented partnerships within the platform of the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth, to extend and optimize digital investments for young people in the education system and on the job, across sectors and within and between countries.
Recognizing that there is more to achieving decent jobs than enhancing and accumulating skills, the campaign invites job creators in the public and private sectors to realize the potential of the Information and Communication Technology and other digitally-driven sectors to employ youth with decent jobs and foster an enabling environment for sustainable youth-led digital entrepreneurship.
“By investing in decent jobs for youth we can achieve an inclusive and development-oriented information society and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals”, said Ryder.
For more information and to explore collaboration with the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth, please contact decentjobsforyouth@ilo.org.
Related Information
The Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth
Source: ILO