MILWAUKEE, Aug. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN), the world leader in innovative workforce solutions, is committed to working with organizations around the world to help young people increase their opportunities for employment as today marks International Youth Day 2013, a global event organized by the United Nations focused on the pressing challenges facing young people. The theme of this year's International Youth Day is Youth Migration: Moving Development Forward.

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High levels of youth unemployment remain one of the most serious challenges facing the global economic recovery; the problem is particularly acute in the Eurozone, which has been gripped by crisis in recent years. While the overall unemployment rate across the region is 12.1%, the rate for young people in countries such as Greece and Spain is more than 55%.[1]       

"Elevated levels of youth unemployment are contributing to a lost generation of talent. The world cannot afford for young people to be left on the sidelines of work and locked out of the learning curve," said Jeffrey A. Joerres, ManpowerGroup Chairman and CEO. "As older workers retire, there are not enough young replacements in the pipeline. Talent shortages inevitably result, representing a real constraint on the ability of businesses to seize available economic opportunities."

With its focus on building agility, employability and vitality into the world's workforce ecosystem to ensure talent sustainability, ManpowerGroup is involved in programs around the world that tackle youth unemployment and provide young people with the skills they need to succeed in the world of work. These include:

• Junior Achievement Success Skills: ManpowerGroup is a longstanding partner of Junior Achievement, the world's largest organization dedicated to educating students about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy. The joint initiative, JA Success Skills, helps students learn how to find, secure, and keep a job, and provides them with tools designed to develop personal strategies for long-term career success. The Success Skills curriculum has been taught to more than 45,000 students in 20 countries.
• Pacte Pen-Breizh: This ManpowerGroup program addresses youth unemployment in Brittany, France, by training people in IT skills — an area where local businesses report notable talent shortages.ManpowerGroup works with a number of partners, including: the French Public Service for Employment in Brittany which provides applications/resumes from people who are looking for a job in the IT sector; the University of Rennes which provides use of its campus for the training; the Regional Council of Brittany which contributed to the development of the project and Orange, which has hired students who have completed the course. Of the 30 young people have who completed the training, 24 have been recruited by Proservia, the IT Services provider and subsidiary of ManpowerGroup France, in help-desk roles. The remaining six students have joined Orange in the same function. Over the next two years, 500 unemployed people will complete the training, helping to fill the 600 current vacant positions in the IT sector in Brittany.
• Training and Development Programs in Germany: ManpowerGroup runs training and development programs throughout Germany for young people who lack qualifications. Training is held in partnership with local schools and programs usually last between one week and six months, but can run up to two years. Young people upskilled through this program have gone on to find employment in a range of industry sectors, including health and social care, logistics, welding and engineering. More than 700 candidates have completed training programs so far.
• UK Apprenticeship Programs: ManpowerGroup UK has more than 4,500 apprentices employed at client sites across the country gaining valuable skills and training as they work. Separately, to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs), who are the largest employers in the UK, ManpowerGroup has developed an apprenticeship portfolio program, allowing an SME to take on a part-time apprentice or an apprentice for only a short period of time. ManpowerGroup will then place the apprentice with other SMEs, allowing them to fulfil the 12-month UK legal requirement for apprenticeships. There are currently 4,000 young apprentices working through ManpowerGroup across the UK with 2,000 placed in Jaguar Landrover alone. ManpowerGroup UK also operates an internal apprenticeship program with 36 apprentices working across its headquarters and national network of branches.

"In today's volatile and ever-changing business environment, businesses and countries need human talent to effectively compete and young people need a path to success," added Joerres. "ManpowerGroup works to bridge the gap between them."

See how ManpowerGroup is tackling youth unemployment around the world in a new infographic: http://www.manpowergroup.com/wps/wcm/connect/manpowergroup-en/home/thought-leadership/research-insights/tackling+youth+unemployment+across+the+world

ManpowerGroup also recently released two reports, "How Policy Makers Can Boost Youth Employment" and "Wanted: Energized, Career-Driven Youth."  Both reports recommend strategies to prevent an entire generation from being excluded from the labor market and can be downloaded from:
http://www.manpowergroup.com/wps/wcm/connect/manpowergroup-en/home/thought-leadership/research-insights/

About ManpowerGroup
ManpowerGroup™ (NYSE: MAN) is the world leader in innovative workforce solutions that ensure the talent sustainability of the world's workforce for the good of companies, communities, countries, and individuals themselves. Specializing in solutions that help organizations achieve business agility and workforce flexibility, ManpowerGroup leverages its 65 years of world of work expertise to create the work models, design the people practices and access the talent sources its clients need for the future. From staffing, recruitment, workforce consulting, outsourcing and career management to assessment, training and development, ManpowerGroup delivers the talent to drive the innovation and productivity of organizations in a world where talentism is the dominant economic system. Every day, ManpowerGroup connects more than 630,000 people to work and builds their experience and employability through its relationships with 400,000 clients across 80 countries and territories. ManpowerGroup's suite of solutions is offered through ManpowerGroup™ Solutions, Manpower®, Experis™ and Right Management®. ManpowerGroup was named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies for the third consecutive year in 2013, confirming our position as the most trusted brand in the industry. See how ManpowerGroup makes powering the world of work humanly possible at www.manpowergroup.com. Follow ManpowerGroup Chairman and CEO Jeff Joerres on Twitter: Twitter.com/manpowergroupjj

[1] http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/31/news/economy/eurozone-unemployment/index.html

SOURCE ManpowerGroup