Reducing the skills gap in LA through apprenticeship

The World Economic Forum (2018) states that Latin America has the largest skills gap in the world but on the bright side, Latin America also has a demographic bonus with 163 million people who are between 15 and 20 years old (WEF, 2017).

Considering these skills gap context, we propose a timely solution to help businesses find the talent with the skill they need and young people to acquire the skills required in the workplace. 

This solution seeks to reduce the number of young people who are neither working or studying which counts to about 30 million people (WEF, 2017).

The scale of the problem, people affected and contributing factor

First. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the economy (GDP) in Latin America has grown an average of 2.8% between 2000 and 2016 whereas the average growth in 56 other economies has accounted for the 4.8%.

Second. One one side, Latin America has fewer medium and large-size firms compared to South Africa, Turkey, India, and other Asian economies (WEF, 2019). From these, in the data from Enterprise Surveys (World Bank, 2019), only 43.2% of the companies in Latin America and the Caribbean offer formal training. On the other side, Latin America has nearly 30 million "NEET" individuals (people who are not working or studying) and if some of them are working, they are doing so in the informal labor market (WEF, 2017) 

Third.  Despite the number of unoccupied people, those middle and large-size companies in the region have issues finding skilled workers. For example, in Argentina 59% of the companies struggle to find talent while in Colombia and Peru 50% and 49% of the companies respectively have issues to find talent (Manpower Group, 2015). 

Fourth. Apprenticeship is a path that has proven good outcomes to reduce the skills gap.

With our solution we are serving two stakeholders directly:

1. The employers who need staff with the necessary soft skills, including but not limited to communication, decision making, leadership, critical thinking, languages to face the current challenges.

2. The young people who are unemployed and must move from being workforce to talent. These are young people who have taken outdated programs and followed approaches that are not at the level expected from employers hence they have not found jobs.

Our solution also will impact other stakeholders indirectly.

1. Education institutions like universities, colleges, institutes that need a deeper understanding of the needs the companies currently have and our solution will provide some data to make adjustments to their programs.

2. Policy makers to design an appropriate apprenticeship model and then, to encourage the use of it to help solve an economic and social problem in the region. 

Considering the regional context and the specific problems the employers and young people have, our solution is a mobile application that both parties use to connect, inform and develop.

Connect. The application will help employers to find people who are looking for a job but because they lack certain skills the have not been able to find one. The companies looking for young people to fill their openings understand that they will have be part of an apprenticeship program and have the commitment to help the participants learn the skills needed in the workplace.

Inform. The application will provide updated information for the two main stakeholder on policies, trends, programs and institutions which are designed or working to strengthen re-skilling and upskilling.

Develop. The application will give tools so the employer becomes aware of what an apprenticeship program is and how they should run it. At the same time, some tools will be also designed to help young people get some of the skills needed in the labor market in different formats including video, reports, lessons, booklets, manuals, books.

While this application is designed for Latin America, we expect to make changes depending on the specific needs of the country for instance, regarding work policies.

We thought about a mobile application because this is a way to include those who are living in urban and rural areas and users will be able to access it via their mobile phones.

We think our solution will address the problem because it will be designed to serve users in urban and rural areas. Our users will be: a) employers who according to recent surveys have had difficulties to find talent who can help them tackle the current challenges they face and b) young people who do not have the skills to apply for the opening positions. 

With the solution we will help users to connect, inform and develop different stakeholders and who for many circumstances have not been able to overcome the recruiting from one side and proper training from the other. 

We are aware that changing practices, particularly for the employers will not be easy but at the same time, we believe that those changes will reflect better conditions for those companies. Likewise, young people will be attracted to the idea of getting appropriate knowledge that will empower them to secure a job.

Since the solution is at a pilot stage the expected numbers are the following:

Year one 1,000 connections for apprenticeships achieved. It means we have been able to connect companies and young people and the latter trained the former in the workplace hence, now the talent has a permanent position within the company.

Year three 3,000 connections for apprenticeships reached. We expect a steady growth in the numbers.

Year five 100,000 connections for apprenticeships achieved. We expect an exponential growth once the solution has been proven and delivered positive outcomes in a handful of countries.

As for the main stakeholders, the main goal in the long term is to help reduce, significantly, the number of young people who do not have the skills to secure a job position. At the same time, we want to provide programs for the employers to improve their recruiting and development practices and the young people to learn more on the skills they need to master. 

Regarding other stakeholder, we want to be a reference for the policy makers to make the necessary changes in legislation to encourage more companies and young people to participate in internship programs. Similarly, education institutions may benefit from the data we provide to make chances to their programs and become also participants of the solutions to the skills gap problem.

Considering the health outbreak that we are experiencing at the moment and the economic consequences it will bring in the coming months, we see that many companies will be firing instead of hiring people hence we see this as the main barrier to achieve the goals for the first year.

As for the long term, the conditions in Latin America are always changing due to the lack of stability in many countries. Governments come and go and so some of the plans they implement. It means that program that may be working in Mexico, for example under the government of one party, may be cancelled when a new party comes to power. 

However, the short and long-term issues are problems we are used to facing and part of what we need to change with solutions like the one we provide because should it work, governments regardless of their ideology, will want to implement solutions that help people get jobs and increase their productivity. Furthermore, it means better companies who will sell more and grow contributing to the tax system in the countries where they operate.

The plan is to have three people in the team.

The leader. This person will make sure the strategy is implemented and manage the everyday operation.

The technical. This person will be in charge of the mobile application. in other word, he/she will make sure the application is running well while adding new features as needed. 

The operator. This person will be the one finding possible companies to be part of the application while reaching young people to understand the problems they face to find jobs.

We believe that we can develop an effective solution because we have gathered experience in education for many years dealing with different size projects. This has given us the expertise in designing and delivering some soft skill programs while understanding the needs of young people. Furthermore, not only do we understand the local but also the international environment because of our experience having projects in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

The business model considers benefits for the employers and young people who are looking for a path to secure a job. The path is the apprenticeship.

The employer will have access to a database of young people looking for a job. 

Young people will find potential employers who are willing to offer the necessary training to get the skills for the position. 

 All this will be done via a mobile application.

The way to get money from the solution will be as follows:

1. When an employer recruits a young person, the employer will pay a fee to us.

2. When the young person needs a program to develop his/herself, he/she will pay a fee for the training program.

3. When the employer needs a program to develop his/her staff, the employer will pay a fee for the training program.

4. On the side, we will provide consulting services to those employers who may need more specific solutions not included in the application.

We are applying for the TPrize Challenge because this is an opportunity for us to move from an idea to real situation while solving a social problem. Furthermore, this would give us a platform to see whether our solution has potential to be implemented and to scale it to a regional and perhaps, world levels.

Some of the organizations we would like to partner with are:

Chambers of commerce because they already have information on the issues the members have and programs to help some of these issues that may include recruiting staff.

Universities, colleges because they have the expertise to deliver some program that can be adapted to the specific need the employers have.

IT companies because they have the experience designing and implementing mobile applications similar to the one we intend to develop.