The world over, young people are struggling to find employment. Joblessness is staggeringly high: globally, 75 million young people are unemployed, and three times as many are underemployed. As this generation gets older and feels the full weight of family responsibilities, they are increasingly denied the opportunity and earning potential of a career. Many companies, meanwhile, struggle to find applicants with the right skills to fill entry-level positions.
McKinsey Social Initiative’s Generation program was created to address this paradox. Since its inception in 2014 with a program to train certified nurse assistants in Wilmington, Delaware, the program has expanded to India, Kenya, Mexico, and Spain, and to other cities within the United States. Young people have been trained for jobs in healthcare, technology, retail, and financial services.
In each program, local employers partner with Generation to create a pathway to new jobs. The results so far are promising: as of today, Generation has reached 3,000 young people and is on pace to surpass 10,000 by the end of the year. Of those 3,000, 90 percent found a job at the end of the program. Ninety percent of employers say they would hire Generation students again.
The true impact of Generation on the lives of its graduates is impossible to understand through statistics alone. Watch McKinsey Social Initiative’s video to see how young people are transforming their lives.