About ten years ago, unemployment was defined as one of the top ten trends globally by the World Economic Forum. The problem appeared to be more significant than climate change, water stress, cybersecurity, and increasing nationalism. Since then, the situation has gradually improved in some Asian and North American countries. However, the issue did not lose its significance till now and has even become more serious due to the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, which has undermined economic activities worldwide, causing a truly terrifying recession. According to the United Nations (UN) statistics, the number of the unemployed grew by 33 million people around the world in 2020, making up 220 million in total, and the overall global unemployment rate was 6.5%, showing 1.1% rise from the previous year.
A Disturbing Trend
While the situation may slightly improve in some G20 nations, unemployment is still steadily rising globally, impacting developing countries the most. Factors contributing to the problem include economic slowdown, financial recession, political unrest in many regions, and persistently increasing income inequality. The Middle East, North Africa, and some Eurozone countries, including Spain and Italy, seem to be the most affected. Considering specific demographic groups, youths, whose unemployment rates were three times higher than those of adults even before the pandemic, are particularly impacted by the trend. The lack of skills, experience, and education makes them the most vulnerable to the dropping out of the labor market. Besides, women, who had to leave their jobs when the pandemic was at its height to care for the family members, are more predisposed to unemployment risks.
Apart from the regional jobs regressions, most of which were caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and have not yet been recovered, the deterioration of the situation is also significantly conditioned by the projections. Indeed, the number of the projected job openings in the nearest few years does not match the size of the predicted worldwide workforce, signaling about an incredible job deficit. The long-term global perspective will get even more worrisome and distressing if particular regions keep on stagnating and regressing in unemployment.
Solutions to the Unemployment Challenge
Leaders and experts in various fields agree on the three possible solutions to the stated problem, which include job creation, education improvement, and innovation enhancement. All these are really large-scale ventures that seem to be solely the responsibility of public sector. Indeed, there are widespread debates concerning political and economic sides of the issue as to the way the private sector can drive any reinforcements in education, innovation, and employment opportunities.
Of course, the primary role in the three defined areas undeniably belongs to the governments. However, the private sector, including players like non-for-profit organizations, philanthropic entities, and non-governmental for-profit global businesses and brands, is bound to assume the responsibility of fighting unemployment collectively, which can also bring loads of benefits to them in terms of growth and profits.
Entrepreneurial Education
One of the ways these private-sector players can help address the unemployment challenge is by promoting entrepreneurial education. Thinking logically, the creation of new job positions is possible with the emerging enterprises, which can be achieved by the growing numbers of entrepreneurs. Research has shown that the majority of openings are available at start-ups rather than at the established old companies, especially the ones that do no invest much in research and development (R&D) sphere to grow further. Thus, the involvement of businesses in the training process is sure to improve educational levels, consequently boosting innovation, and ultimately, leading to jobs creation.
Surveys prove that entrepreneurship evokes very high levels of interest in youth today. Specifically, about half of young people admit that they would rather be entrepreneurs than employees. Above 40% of university students have serious plans of starting their own businesses within several years after graduation. At the same time, the real figures show that very low percentage of them are actively engaged in running a business or developing a start-up. The implication is that there is a substantial gap between the desire and the actual efforts in this direction and a serious untapped potential to be addressed. The reason for such an inconsistency is the lack of entrepreneurial education provided by the schools.
The mission of the educational system is to augment the curriculum with the corresponding disciplines that can boost young people’s capabilities and consequently, enhance their confidence in their own skills and strengths to start an enterprise. In addition, private businesses can also offer additional training programs for the youth targeted at developing mathematical and communication skills, providing practical learning, and teaching how to create a business plan, design campaigns, develop new products, sell them, etc. Being highly interested in entrepreneurship, students need much more than to know where and how to buy cheap essay. They require substantial cognitive and non-cognitive skills, a so-called “entrepreneurial mindset,” which is instrumental in running a business and innovation. Such courses and training programs can provide all these, equipping the young people with abilities to identify opportunities, take risks, and cope with failures.
Generally, entrepreneurial mindset is the key 21st-century workforce skill. It can help not only in starting up a business but also in filling in the existing positions. A candidate who possesses it is undeniably more preferable for the employer and has higher chances to get hired. Such people are much more qualified for today’s demanding jobs since they know how to collaborate with others, interact confidently, communicate clearly, and be flexible and persistent.
Teaching young people how to think like an entrepreneur is beneficial in all respects. Fresh graduates in search for work get higher chances of securing a prospective job or launching a start-up, which will ultimately create new jobs for the others, businesses get highly-trained employees ready for the current industry challenges, unemployment decreases, and economies grow. Thus, investments from both public and private sectors are necessary to address all the three issues stressed at the beginning of this article: education improvement, innovation enhancement, and job creation.
