Youth unemployment and underemployment have reached critical levels and are expected to continue to rise in most G20 economies. Yet many employers cannot find enough people with the skills they need to grow their business and enable the economy to recover, according to a recent report by Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) titled 'Addressing the Employability Crisis'.
The report says this is threatening the global economic recovery and could lead to a "lost generation" of young adults. It talks about a need to forge stronger links between academia and business, education and skills, theory and practice, supply and demand to fight the employability crisis.
According to the report, some of the factors in global employability crisis are older workers' employability (older workers' skill sets can become dated and their benefits can make them relatively expensive), changing demographics (supply of workers is outstripping employment opportunities), fewer jobs for people of working age (a lower proportion of people of working age are in work today than in last two decades), impact of technology (advances in technology continue to drive innovative new ways of doing business), and globalisation.
High levels of unemployment coincide with skill shortages, and talented people will be in short supply in many economies. Significant talent gaps are expected by 2020 and beyond, the report states.
The report also underscores a disconnect between education, skills and jobs. For many young people, education is not providing the skills they need to gain the employment they aspire to, the report says. Many job aspirants lack the technical and professional skills demanded by the changing job market. This disconnect is impacting a range of stakeholders - young adults, employees, employers, educators and policy makers - the greatest impact being for the young people.
Underlining the responsibilities of stakeholders, the report suggests that young adults need to make informed choices about further education, based on realities of the labour marketand must aim to obtain the education skills and experience employers expect. The current workforce needs to undertake continuing professional development to maintain or advance career. Employers need to compete to attract the most talented individuals with leadership potential. They should attract, 'onboard', develop and retain talent for all job roles, not just future leadership.
Educators need to integrate employability skills into courses and work more closely with employers to complement academic learning while society and policy makers need to ensure they have right data to make decisions and stimulate economy and foster job creation and also ensure young people have skills employers expect and link education to business.
Talking about employment challenges unique to India, Debasish Biswas, country head, CIMA India, says: "One of the unique challenges in India is the crisis of getting the first job and academic performance has no correlation with this." There is lack of communication skill, customer interfacing skills and soft skills, he adds.
The report says this is threatening the global economic recovery and could lead to a "lost generation" of young adults. It talks about a need to forge stronger links between academia and business, education and skills, theory and practice, supply and demand to fight the employability crisis.
According to the report, some of the factors in global employability crisis are older workers' employability (older workers' skill sets can become dated and their benefits can make them relatively expensive), changing demographics (supply of workers is outstripping employment opportunities), fewer jobs for people of working age (a lower proportion of people of working age are in work today than in last two decades), impact of technology (advances in technology continue to drive innovative new ways of doing business), and globalisation.
High levels of unemployment coincide with skill shortages, and talented people will be in short supply in many economies. Significant talent gaps are expected by 2020 and beyond, the report states.
The report also underscores a disconnect between education, skills and jobs. For many young people, education is not providing the skills they need to gain the employment they aspire to, the report says. Many job aspirants lack the technical and professional skills demanded by the changing job market. This disconnect is impacting a range of stakeholders - young adults, employees, employers, educators and policy makers - the greatest impact being for the young people.
Underlining the responsibilities of stakeholders, the report suggests that young adults need to make informed choices about further education, based on realities of the labour marketand must aim to obtain the education skills and experience employers expect. The current workforce needs to undertake continuing professional development to maintain or advance career. Employers need to compete to attract the most talented individuals with leadership potential. They should attract, 'onboard', develop and retain talent for all job roles, not just future leadership.
Educators need to integrate employability skills into courses and work more closely with employers to complement academic learning while society and policy makers need to ensure they have right data to make decisions and stimulate economy and foster job creation and also ensure young people have skills employers expect and link education to business.
Talking about employment challenges unique to India, Debasish Biswas, country head, CIMA India, says: "One of the unique challenges in India is the crisis of getting the first job and academic performance has no correlation with this." There is lack of communication skill, customer interfacing skills and soft skills, he adds.
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