As societies become increasingly digital, cyber security has become a priority for individuals, companies and nations. The number of cyber attacks is exceeding defence capabilities, and one reason for this is the lack of an adequately skilled cyber security workforce. This report analyses the demand for cyber security professionals in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States using information contained in online job postings. The analysis looks at recent trends in the demand for workers in different types of cyber security roles, the geographical distribution of cyber security job postings, and the changing skill requirements for professionals in this field. The report also looks at the supply side, zooming in on the landscape of cyber security education and training programmes in England (United Kingdom). It describes the different types of programmes provided in further and higher education, the profile of learners in these programmes and their outcomes. Finally, the report also looks at policies and initiatives adopted in England to make cyber security education and training programmes more accessible and relevant. This report is part of a larger initiative examining the evolution of policies and experiences in the cyber security profession around the world.

Angola is at a critical juncture and a multi-sectoral strategy is needed to stimulate job creation that will help build the economy and future prospects for young Angolans, while more deeply engaging youth and increasing productivity in the short term. Job prospects are limited and although youth are better prepared for the labor market than adults, they are still vulnerable and face multiple constraints. The existing portfolio of Active Labor Market Programs offer few programs that are appropriate for the most vulnerable youth. Though the latest macro-economic adjustments and fiscal consolidation will help, much more is needed to leverage oil revenues away from pure consumption and towards investment to develop Angola as a country in its own right. More aggressive policy reforms in the private sector are needed to support productive job growth for firms as well as entrepreneurs to ensure good jobs that are particularly inclusive of vulnerable youth and women. Furthermore, investments in human capital will help youth develop the skills needed for better jobs while improving labor-matching mechanisms to help youth transition into employment.

This report estimates the size of the South African care economy through an analysis of the number of existing and potential future job opportunities in the sector. It also outlines the potential impact of investment into the care economy including economic impact, impact on beneficiaries, and impact on the young people who could access the job opportunities together with the broader societal impacts.

This Knowledge Brief shares lessons on how the World Bank’s Promoting Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Social Protection and Employment Programs project team in Haiti worked to enhance the identification of persons with disabilities and provide them with skills for service sector jobs. The Brief highlights the importance of focusing on demand-driven skills, working with mainstream training providers, and proactive outreach to employers.

The study draws on youth and employer survey results to document the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people in Jordan and Palestine, with an emphasis on vulnerable youth including refugees in Jordan, youth in Gaza, and young women. Key topics include:

• Youth employment trajectories during the pandemic
• Youth interest in virtual freelancing jobs
• Employer hiring projections and demand for skills
• Promising sectors for youth employment during the COVID-19 recovery

This study provides an overview of impact investment and skills creation in innovation, covering the main features of impact investment, the historical development of the phenomenon, and how it can be linked to the skills creation process. The study examines the emergence of impact investing and explains its principles and defining features. It maps some existing initiatives at European and local levels, presents examples of good and innovative practices in investments with social impact, and explores what practices and instruments for impact investment in innovation skills have been and/or could be applied in the Western Balkans.

The 2022 edition discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people and their labour market prospects during the recovery and beyond. Youth have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and youth labour markets are now being buffeted by the lingering impacts of the pandemic, geopolitical risks and macroeconomic risks such as the impact of supply chain disruptions and rising inflation, particularly that of food and energy. There is also the potential permanent damage wreaked by these crises on the fabric of labour markets. As countries seek to address these multiple challenges, they must also not lose sight of longer-term priorities. In particular, targeted investment in the green, blue (ocean), digital, creative and care economies hold great potential to provide decent jobs for young people while setting economies on path towards greater sustainability, inclusiveness and resilience.

This technical note provides support for applying a human rights-based approach (HRBA). The note begins with a short introduction to the HRBA and Sida’s PLANET tool. It then explains how human rights norms and standards underpin the thematic area. The note demonstrates how PLANET can guide staff in planning, assessing and monitoring a contribution through a series of guiding questions and examples. Finally, it provides a simple empowerment and capacity development analysis model and a list of additional resources to explore.

This World Bank report argues that the lack of market contestability in the MENA region makes it hard for new firms to start up and expand—so employment cannot grow fast enough to keep up with the growth of the working-age population. In addition, the report underlines the limited market dynamism and stunted job creation that continues to depress MENA's private sector. Finally, the report highlights the importance of understanding the policies and regulations hindering market contestability.

South Africa’s paid care economy contributes 13.8% towards total employment in the labour market and is largely undertaken by women – estimated at 84% in Graph 1 below.

Historically, the care economy has been a neglected sector, however, recent attention has been brought to it by South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa. This presents an opportunity to create momentum around expanding solutions for the care economy.

This report is structured to dive into each of the care economy sectors, starting with early childhood development, and then education, healthcare and domestic work. Each section will provide an overview of the sector, specify key operators, outline challenges and bottlenecks, and identify opportunities for targeted investment.

This UNDP report aims to understand the needs of LGBTI young people and Young Key Populations (YKP) in the AIDS response in the Asia-Pacific region, in their quest for more secure digital spaces and improved experiences of digital citizenship. The assessment also acts as guidance material for Youth-led organizations (Youth Lead and Y-Peer) to develop their own tools and resources for their communities and support grassroot level organizations to build online platforms for advocacy.

It is widely accepted that schools and other settings catering to youth can play an essential role in offering education in life skills and character. However, there exists a broad array of potential targets for such programs, suggesting the need for guidance on which targets are most likely to result in demonstrable and valuable results. This report attempts to integrate a broad literature addressing the universe of targets for skills development programs for youth. After identifying a set of 30 candidate skills to investigate further, research literature was reviewed to evaluate each skill on three dimensions. Measurability had to do with the extent to which adequate measurement tools were available for evaluating skill level, with emphasis on those tools specifically used for younger populations and available in multiple languages, particularly in Spanish. Malleability had to do with the extent to which there is evidence that interventions have the potential to modify skill level, with emphasis on those that have been extensively evaluated through randomized controlled trials. Finally, meaningfulness had to do with the extent to which evidence exists demonstrating that the higher levels of skill can result in consequential outcomes. Based on these criteria, 10 skills were selected for further review as having the most compelling evidence to date that they are life skills that matter: Mindfulness, Empathy and compassion, Self-efficacy/ Self-determination, Problem solving, Critical thinking, Goal orientation and goal completion, Resilience/Stress resistance, Self-awareness, Purposefulness, and Self-regulation/Self-control/Emotion regulation. The evidence for each is summarized. We finish with a review of key issues to consider in the design, implementation, and evaluation of life skills that matter.

This World Bank report incorporates youth aspirations and employment module of High-Frequency Phone Surveys (HFPS) into multi-topic household surveys to present the differences in education and career aspirations across Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Malawi. The data collected is nationally representative, and age distribution is similar across countries. Understanding the aspirations and goals of the youth is expected to lead to the development of effective employment policies.

This paper presents evidence on how social protection and especially non-contributory cash transfers impact on individuals and households in low- and middle-income countries. The paper provides guidance on what policies, programming and interventions have been considered effective for Sida’s objective of creating better living conditions for people living in poverty and oppression.

This paper assesses the link between human capital, emission and technological change, using OECD data on employed individuals’ cognitive skills as well as industrial emissions. The findings demonstrate that higher levels of cognitive skills are associated with employment in industries that rely less on emissions. In addition, those industries have been able over time to reduce their reliance on emissions for production. The study provides evidence that across OECD countries less emission-intensive industries require more highly skilled workers – thus investments in education are critical to better enable the uptake of green technologies.

This research examines a specific aspect of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program, which is the provision of career and technical education (CTE) opportunities for program participants. The report relies on administrative data collected from all programs pertaining to their operations in 2017 and 2018, as well as interviews with select program staff in 2019. In this report, the authors highlight promising practices in CTE provision found in the literature. The report discusses implications and future considerations as more ChalleNGe sites consider introducing CTE into their programming and as more states consider establishing Job ChalleNGe, which provides post-secondary education and training to ChalleNGe graduates.

Mobile phone network coverage has increased worldwide over the past two decades. In advanced and emerging economies alike, young people are much more digitally connected than older generations. Digital technologies offer an opportunity to communicate with youth and collect data at a low-cost. Using digital methods like SMS has become more relevant to obtain timely data and information, especially with the current COVID-19 crisis. This note highlights the six steps taken by the Mexico Youth Labor Market Inclusion (MYLMI) project to design a successful short message system (SMS) outreach strategy to incorporate youth voice in their project.

This note highlights how the Mexico Youth Labor Market Inclusion (MYLMI) project used four strategies to incorporate youth voice in the design of their program. The project focuses on generating evidence on interventions that promote the labor inclusion of low-income youth into formal quality jobs in strategic productive sectors. The project is being implemented by the World Bank and the Government of Mexico in the state of San Luis Potosi.

An innovation of IFC, Vitae helps higher education institutions understand how well they’re preparing students for the workforce. It’s a data-driven approach for public and private institutions to evaluate themselves against a global benchmark of good practices. Vitae identifies employability gaps and proposes practical interventions to equip an institution to chart a path to transformation.