Quality apprenticeships based on robust social dialogue and public-private partnerships can improve employment prospects for young people while developing high level skills identified by employers as necessary for growth and increased productivity. Both informal and regulated apprenticeship systems are important learning resources enabling young people to overcome the work-inexperience trap, gain new and enhanced skills and recognized qualifications.

Upgrading informal apprenticeships and expanding regulated ones is a cost-effective way to invest in a country’s skills base, promote economic growth and enhance the employability of youth.

Of an estimated 1 billion people with disabilities in the world today, some 785 million are of working age. While many are successfully employed and fully integrated into society, most face a disproportionate level of poverty and unemployment. This is a massive loss both to them and their countries. A strategy of including people with disabilities in training and employment promotion policies, combined with targeted supports to ensure their participation, can help disabled persons obtain productive mainstream employment.

Core employability skills build upon and strengthen the skills developed through basic education; the technical skills needed for specific occupations or to perform specific tasks or duties (such as nursing, accounting, using technology or driving a forklift); and professional/personal attributes such as honesty, reliability, punctuality and loyalty. 
Core work skills enable individuals to constantly acquire and apply new knowledge and skills; they are also critical to lifelong learning. Various agencies and organizations have given different labels to these skills, ranging from “key competencies” to “soft skills”, “transferable skills” or “essential skills”.
 

There is a critical need for a greater overall investment in education and training, particularly in developing countries. Education and training investments should be closely linked to economic and employment growth strategies and programmes. Responsibility should be shared between the government (primary responsibility), enterprises, the social partners, and the individual. To make lifelong learning for all a reality, countries will need to make major reforms of their vocational and education and training systems. School-to-work schemes for young people should integrate education with workplace learning. Training systems need to become more flexible and responsive to rapidly changing skill requirements. Reforms should also focus on how learning can be facilitated, not just on training for specific occupational categories.

Increasingly, countries around the world, at all levels of development are putting work-based learning, particularly apprenticeships, high on their policy agenda, recognizing its potential for reducing skills mismatch, meeting skills demand of a fast changing labour market, providing cost-effective training, promoting private sector development and smoothing transitions to the world of work. 

Moreover, the issue of how skills are used in the workplace and how businesses engage with the local skills ecosystem are getting greater attention. It is increasingly recognized that workers who better use their skills are more likely to have greater job satisfaction, earn better wages and are more prepared to adapt to changes in the nature of work, while employers benefit from a more productive and innovative workforce, enabling them to maximise business performance and profitability. 

Eight out of 10 of the world’s working poor who live on US $1.25 per day live in rural areas, where many are caught in vulnerable employment, especially in agriculture.Flourishing rural areas are vital to regional and national development. Yet, rural economies tend to face a wide range of challenges that urban areas are more likely to overcome. These include access to transportation, sanitation and health services, and a consumer base in close proximity to support small and medium enterprise development. Women and men working in rural areas also face difficulties associated with a paucity of economic opportunities, under investment, poor infrastructure and public services, including education, and, in many cases, weak governance and underdeveloped markets.

Education, entrepreneurship, and physical and social infrastructure all play an important role in developing rural regions. Skills are central to improving employability and livelihood opportunities, reducing poverty, enhancing productivity and promoting environmentally sustainable development.

Matching skills to labour market demand requires reliable sectoral and occupational information and institutions that connect employers with training providers.  Sector based strategies and institutions have proved effective in engaging all stakeholders in promoting both pre-employment training and life-long learning.

Skills and employment policies should be viewed together.  The full value of one policy set is realized when it supports the objectives of the other.  For investments in education and training to yield maximum benefit to workers, enterprises, and economies, countries’ capacities for coordination is critical in three areas: connecting basic education to technical training and then to market entry; ensuring continuous communication between employers and training providers so that training meets the needs and aspirations of workers and enterprises, and integrating skills development policies with industrial, investment, trade, technology, environmental, rural and local development policies.

Access for all to good quality education, vocational training and workplace learning is a fundamental principle of social cohesion and economic growth. Some groups of people may require targeted attention if they are to benefit from education, training and employment opportunities.  

This is particularly the case for disadvantaged youth, lower skilled workers, people with disabilities, and people in rural communities. The attractiveness of vocational education and training is enhanced when combined with entrepreneurship training and when public policies encourage utilization of higher skills by business. 
 

Eight out of 10 of the world’s working poor who live on US $1.25 per day live in rural areas, where many are caught in vulnerable employment, especially in agriculture.Flourishing rural areas are vital to regional and national development. Yet, rural economies tend to face a wide range of challenges that urban areas are more likely to overcome. These include access to transportation, sanitation and health services, and a consumer base in close proximity to support small and medium enterprise development. Women and men working in rural areas also face difficulties associated with a paucity of economic opportunities, under investment, poor infrastructure and public services, including education, and, in many cases, weak governance and underdeveloped markets.

Education, entrepreneurship, and physical and social infrastructure all play an important role in developing rural regions. Skills are central to improving employability and livelihood opportunities, reducing poverty, enhancing productivity and promoting environmentally sustainable development.

Matching skills to labour market demand requires reliable sectoral and occupational information and institutions that connect employers with training providers.  Sector based strategies and institutions have proved effective in engaging all stakeholders in promoting both pre-employment training and life-long learning.

Access for all to good quality education, vocational training and workplace learning is a fundamental principle of social cohesion and economic growth. Some groups of people may require targeted attention if they are to benefit from education, training and employment opportunities.  

This is particularly the case for disadvantaged youth, lower skilled workers, people with disabilities, and people in rural communities. The attractiveness of vocational education and training is enhanced when combined with entrepreneurship training and when public policies encourage utilization of higher skills by business. 
 

Most young people around the world do not have the chance to attend formal institutions of learning. The capacity of formal education and training systems is often limited due to inadequate training infrastructures and the relatively high costs of full-time, centre-based training. Consequently, large numbers of youth are learning and then working in the informal economy. 

Informal apprenticeship systems that transmit the skills of a trade to a young person in a micro- or small enterprise have operated for generations in many countries. They are considered by far the most important source of skills training in Africa and South Asia.

Women and men in the informal economy often do not possess a formal proof of their skills. Skills acquired informally are not visible and hence are often not recognized by employers. Transitions to the formal labour market can also be facilitated if skills are assessed and recognized. Systems of Recognition of Prior Learning are being introduced by countries to offer access to further learning or to formal labour markets.

Globally, nearly 68 million young women and men are looking for and available for work,  and an estimated 123 million young people are working but living in poverty. The number who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) stands at 267 million, a majority of whom are young women. Significantly, young people are three times as likely as adults (25 years and older) to be unemployed.

Skills development is a primary means of enabling young people to make a smooth transition to work. A comprehensive approach is required to integrate young women and men in the labour market, including relevant and quality skills training, labour market information, career guidance and employment services, recognition of prior learning, incorporating entrepreneurship with training and effective skills forecasting. Improved basic education and core work skills are particularly important to enable youth to engage in lifelong learning as well as transition to the labour market. 

Access for all to good quality education, vocational training and workplace learning is a fundamental principle of social cohesion and economic growth. Some groups of people may require targeted attention if they are to benefit from education, training and employment opportunities.  

This is particularly the case for disadvantaged youth, lower skilled workers, people with disabilities, and people in rural communities. The attractiveness of vocational education and training is enhanced when combined with entrepreneurship training and when public policies encourage utilization of higher skills by business. 
 

The growing importance of sustainable development and the shift to a low-carbon and climateresilient economy will require new skills and qualifications, offering great potential for the creation of green jobs but also implying structural changes and a transformation of existing jobs. The transition to a low-carbon and greener economy will generate millions of new jobs, negatively affect some high-emitting sectors, and alter most existing occupations in terms of task compositions and skills requirements. 

Ensuring the right skills for green jobs is a prerequisite to make the transition to a greener economy happen. Today, skills gaps are already recognised as a major bottleneck in a number of sectors, such as renewable energy, energy and resource efficiency, green building or environmental services. The adoption and dissemination of clean technologies require skills in technology application, adaptation and maintenance. Skills are also crucial for economies and
businesses, workers and entrepreneurs to rapidly adapt to changes deriving from climate change and environmental policies. 

Increasingly, countries around the world, at all levels of development are putting work-based learning, particularly apprenticeships, high on their policy agenda, recognizing its potential for reducing skills mismatch, meeting skills demand of a fast changing labour market, providing cost-effective training, promoting private sector development and smoothing transitions to the world of work. 

Moreover, the issue of how skills are used in the workplace and how businesses engage with the local skills ecosystem are getting greater attention. It is increasingly recognized that workers who better use their skills are more likely to have greater job satisfaction, earn better wages and are more prepared to adapt to changes in the nature of work, while employers benefit from a more productive and innovative workforce, enabling them to maximise business performance and profitability.