Reducing Youth Unemployment in South Africa

South Africa is faced with a crisis of high and rising youth unemployment. Throughout the country, only 1 in 3 young people of working age is employed. This distressing statistic not only plays out through the limited earnings potential and future prospects of these youth, but also emerges within stymied business growth and unsustainable pressure on governmental social programs. The solution will take action from a variety of sectors and actors in order to turn the tide.This report, funded by The Rockefeller Foundation, highlights two cross-sectoral partnerships—the EOH Youth Job Creation Initiative and the Mentec Foundation—that have seen success in placing these disadvantaged youth in jobs throughout South Africa. The report concludes with a table of recommendations for employers, training providers, philanthropic funders, and government officials to begin growing and replicating these efforts.Top TakeawaysThroughout their lives, youth within South Africa are put at an employment disadvantage due to inadequate education and recruiting systems. Despite an estimated 500,000 entry-level vacancies throughout the country, young people often lack the necessary problem-solving skills, business acumen, technological savvy, and communication skills needed for the workplace, and structures that would enable this on-the-job learning (training, mentoring, and coaching) are not standard practice for most workplaces.In order to place more youth in jobs, sectors can bring their unique skills to bear while complementing one another's efforts: government incentives can encourage employers to take calculated risks and reform HR practices; training providers can focus more on skills, including job-readiness skills, that are directly demanded by employers and work with these employers for placement; and funders can strategically deploy grants to such programs and collaboratives.Youth who participate in demand-driven training programs and are then hired into jobs become valuable staff in short order: the youth were more motivated to perform well and assimilated quickly to the work environment

New Mexico: Round 1 - State-Level Field Network Study of the Implementation of the Affordable Care Act

This report is part of a series of 21 state and regional studies examining the rollout of the ACA. The national network -- with 36 states and 61 researchers -- is led by the Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public policy research arm of the State University of New York, the Brookings Institution, and the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania.New Mexico is no longer one of the key battleground states as it has moved more Democratic in recent presidential races, a trend driven by Latino population growth and a shift to the Democratic Party among that population. During the 2013 legislative session, Senate Bill 221 passed and authorized the establishment of a state-run New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange (NMHIX). On March 28, 2013, the governor signed Senate Bill 221 into law. Another major ACA-related decision involved Medicaid. Given the aggressive opposition from other Republican governors to the ACA, Martínez surprised some observers when she announced in early 2013 that New Mexico would expand Medicaid as long as the federal government provided the funding for the initial expansion

Information Outlook, April 2007

Volume 11, Issue 4https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2007/1003/thumbnail.jp

CAHRS hrSpectrum (November-December 2008)

HRSpec2008_12.pdf: 478 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Women IT Technicians: moving through the glass partition

A study of the lives and careers of women ICT technicians offers a different perspective to other research which focuses on traditional educational routes into computing professions. As part of the JIVE Partners project funded by the European Equal programme, we have recently completed a research study using a qualitative longitudinal approach that followed 20 women ICT technicians who were training to become Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers. We found that their routes into ICT were complex and varied and had often involved crossing boundaries between jobs which are usually gender segregated. Rather than reaching a glass ceiling that blocked their upward progression, these women found ways to make a lateral transition through a ‘glass partition’ into areas of work that have traditionally been dominated by men. Whilst women form significant numbers of those studying and working with ICTs, they are usually concentrated in administrative contexts rather than in technical occupations. Although precise figures are difficult to ascertain, there are few women working as ICT technicians or support staff and those that do work in these fields find that their career prospects are limited due to the attitudes and practices within this sector. Women in the study had a range of technical job roles some of which spanned traditional gender boundaries. The majority of the women did not choose ICT as their first profession, and for many of them there was an element of luck or chance in their entry into their current job roles. While formal careers advice had been minimal, family members (male and female) were important influencers, either as role models or as a source of information and encouragement. Prior to entering work in technical areas of ICT, these women had a range of educational backgrounds; they were often quite highly qualified but not in ICT subjects. Career decisions and future plans were strongly influenced by work life balance consideration

Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning

Reviews trends in the continuing professional development (CPD) of library and information staff in relation to contemporary university library practice in the digital world, highlighting the impact of technology on content and delivery. Discusses current drivers of CPD, multiple routes to professional development, technological impacts on work and learning, mentoring and reflection as professional meta-competencies, leadership institutes and organisational development programmes, and practitioner doctorates as advanced professional development. Concludes that CPD is particularly important because of continuing rapid technology-driven change and that education, research and development activities should be seen as a continuum informing, enhancing and advancing university library practice

Strategic human resource management: insights from the international hotel industry

In the strategic human resource management (SHRM) field three approaches have dominated, namely, the universal or best-practice, best-fit or contingency and resource-based view (RBV). This study investigates evidence for the simultaneous or mixed adoption of these approaches by eight case study firms in the international hotel industry. Findings suggest there is considerable evidence of the combined use of the first two approaches but that the SHRM RBV approach was difficult to achieve by all companies. Overall, gaining differentiation through SHRM practices was found to be challenging due to specific industry forces. The study identifies that where companies derive some competitive advantage from their human resources and HRM practices they have closely aligned their managers’ expertise with their corporate market entry mode expertise and developed some distinctive, complex and integrated HRM interventions, which have a mutually reinforcing effect

NET WORKING: Work Patterns and Workforce Policies for the New Media Industry

This report, based on a study of a group of highly accomplished professionals in New York City, is one of the first to take up labor market issues in the new media industry. It describes the challenges faced by professionals and employers alike in this important and dynamic sector, and identifies strategies for success in a project oriented environment with highly complex skill demands and rapidly changing technology. Our findings suggest three central issues