PwC Network, UNICEF join hands to upskill millions of youth

10 / 03 / 2020

By Marwa Nassar - -

PwC Network and UNICEF are joining forces over the next three years to help equip young people around the world with the skills they need for future work.

The collaboration will support research on the growing global skills challenge and develop, expand and fund education and skills programs in countries including India and South Africa.

About one third of youths complain their education does not help them acquire needed skills to join labor market. Moreover, about 75 percent of CEOs are concerned about finding skilled employees to grow their business.

The collaboration between UNICEF and PwC will support the World Economic Forum’s Reskilling Revolution Platform, of which both are founding partners. The platform aims to provide better jobs, education, and skills to one billion people in the next 10 years.

PwC’s skills, expertise and resources will also support Generation Unlimited, a global partnership hosted by UNICEF, to help young people successfully transition from education and training to decent work.

PwC and Generation Unlimited will convene public, private and civil society stakeholders to develop investment opportunities, programs and innovations that support young people in their path to productive futures and engaged citizenship.

Polls on young people’s skills:

An online poll of 40,000 young people in over 150 countries reveals that many young people feel their current education is not preparing them with the skills they need to get jobs.

One third (31 percent) of the young people responding via the UNICEF engagement platform U-Report say that the skills and training programs offered to them did not match their career aspirations. More than a third of respondents (39 percent) go on to say that the jobs they seek are not available in their communities.

According to the poll, the key skills young people want to acquire in order to help them gain employment in the next decade include leadership (22 percent), followed by analytical thinking and innovation (19 percent), and information and data processing (16 percent).

Separately, a global survey by PwC found that 74% of CEOs around the world said they are concerned about finding the right skills to grow their business.

To address some of these challenges, UNICEF and PwC decided to play an effective role to upskill youths worldwide to be able to join labor market.

How UNICEF, PwC will address young people’s needs?

“Young people are telling us they want digital and transferable skills to succeed in the workplace of the future,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said. “This crucial need can only be met through the contributions of public and private partners around the globe. That is why we are working with partners like PwC to provide opportunities for personal growth and prosperity for young people everywhere.”

Every month, 10 million young people reach working age, most of them coming from low and middle-income countries. According to a global research, it takes young people in those countries about a year and a half on average to break into the labor market, and a staggering four and a half years to find their first decent job. This situation could potentially further deteriorate if it isn’t addressed, with 20-40% of the jobs currently held by 16-24 year olds assessed to be at risk of automation by the mid-2030s.

“We believe business has a responsibility to help address the upskilling challenge for all of our stakeholders, including the communities in which we live and work and all of their citizens. It also makes business sense: in PwC’s latest Global CEO Survey, three quarters of CEOs said the lack of available skills is a major concern and risk. Many of the people who need upskilling the most have the least access to opportunities,” said Bob Moritz, Chairman of the PwC Network.