Watch Again | VCCI and UNICEF’s “Three Dialogues on Youth Employability” Event with The Centre

On September 15, The Centre participated in VCCI and UNICEF’s “Three Dialogues on Youth Employability” forum, a three-day event that brought together business stakeholders, related organisations and youth to discuss and share international and national good practices to create decent jobs opportunities and enhance employability skills for young people.

Ines Kaempfer, CEO of The Centre, made the case for why businesses should consider integrating youth into their workforce and how this can lead to strengthened sustainability, resilience and quality of these businesses, while positively contributing to the economy on the whole. 

Encouraging businesses to hire youth including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, Ines described how The Centre works with businesses in a range of settings, from manufacturing to agriculture, to allow both youth and businesses to reap the mutual benefits of joining forces. To achieve this, Ines shared the following tips for businesses:

• Have the systems in place to ensure businesses have the right protection mechanisms in place

• Identify the skills that youth will need, both in terms of technical and transferable skills; develop training programme that meets their needs, and connect with third-party service providers like The Centre or technical schools if necessary for support in this process

• Identify suitable positions for youth, or render existing positions non-hazardous

• Think about how your business can offer continued training for youth

She also cautioned of the risks when youth are shunned from the formal sector: 

“There are youth out there that are looking for opportunities and that need opportunities and that need to be given chances. And it’s very important for formal businesses to engage youth in their business because otherwise these youth […] will be hired through informal sectors and through sectors where they have no protection and where they don’t get opportunities to advance their skills and their career.”

The Centre was joined in the panel by Kanwarpreet Singh , Sustainability Compliance Manager, South East Asia & Australia , IKEA; Ms. Tran Lan Anh, Director, Bureau For Employers’ Activities (VCCI) and Ms. La Yen Nhi, a student in the Business Law Department at the Economics University in Vietnam. 

The session was livestreamed on Youtube. Please click here to watch the full replay. 

Find out more about The Centre’s young and juvenile workers services here.