For more than two decades, thou­sands of young peo­ple have en­tered job train­ing pro­grammes de­signed to pre­pare them for the work­force, but ques­tions per­sist over whether those pro­grammes are con­sis­tent­ly trans­lat­ing in­to em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

That con­cern sur­faced dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) in­quiry in­to youth un­em­ploy­ment and un­der­em­ploy­ment, where of­fi­cials point­ed to gaps in labour mar­ket da­ta, pol­i­cy co­or­di­na­tion and job place­ment sys­tems, along­side on­go­ing ef­forts to im­prove align­ment be­tween train­ing and em­ploy­ment.

Labour Mar­ket Spe­cial­ist at the Min­istry of Labour, Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment, Dr Justin Joseph, said one of the main is­sues is a mis­match be­tween the skills young peo­ple pos­sess and labour mar­ket de­mand.