In my early 20s, I spent an amazing year in Australia and New Zealand working on sailboats in the Pacific and chasing down sheep on a station in the outback. The jobs were part of my meandering launch to adulthood and gave me crucial insight into life after school. Back then, moving into the world of work was a simpler affair. Nowadays it has become exponentially more complex. Rapid shifts in the job market mean that the path to employment is often a moving target and automation and AI mean that some once predictable jobs are going away, so navigating from the relative simplicity of a classroom into working life is no easy task.
And while young people today tend to have more education, more degrees; they tend to have fewer skills, less real-world experience. As a result, young people, on average across OECD countries, are unemployed about 2.5 times more than adults over 24 and in some countries this ratio is much higher. Fortunately, thanks to the OECD’s Career Readiness team, there is a growing road map to help young adults get into employment.
OECD “career readiness indicators” set out 11 aspects of teenage career development – such as forms of career exploration and meaningful workplace experience – that can best prepare young people to compete in the labour market. Policymakers should take note because OECD research shows that “experiencing” work-based learning as a secondary student tends to be associated with higher wages and better life outcomes, with positive implications for society as well.
However, according to OECD analysis, now, only one third of young people have some experience with a meaningful job placement or internship by the age of 16.
