Apprenticeships Could Help Reduce Youth Unemployment, Business Leaders Say

DAVOS, Switzerland - An old concept may be coming back into vogue as business leaders and governments struggle with ways to address high unemployment rates among young people after the financial crisis: the apprenticeship.

Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum, Guy Ryder, director general of the International Labour Organization, said apprenticeships, once common, disappeared in Britain and many other developed nations as economies shifted from manufacturing goods to selling goods.

“You wonder why my generation was not in manufacturing,” Mr. Ryder said. “We were told those were jobs of the past. A bit of a reset is coming up.”

The aftermath of the financial crisis, combined with a lack of technical training programs and a perception that manufacturing jobs are not ones to aspire to, has left a generation of young people without jobs or the highly technical skills needed to get them, panel members said Thursday.

Nearly 75 million young people were unemployed worldwide in 2012, according to the World Economic Forum.

Facing an aging population of skilled workers, business leaders said they were hoping to change that through technical training and programs, including apprenticeships and internships, that are intended to give young people the skills they need to succeed in today’s work force and avoid a “lost generation” of workers.

Klaus C. Kleinfeld, chairman and chief executive of the aluminum maker Alcoa, said the company was working with a program in Whitehall, Mich., to encourage girls to pursue careers related to science, technology, engineering or mathematics. That includes “modern” manufacturing, he said.

“They think it’s a dirty job, a repetitive job,” he said. “It is not dirty at all, not repetitive at all. There are a lot of opportunities for advancement.”

Muhtar A. Kent, chairman and chief executive of the Coca-Cola Company, said Coke had undertaken a program called 5by20 to assist female entrepreneurs, with the goal of empowering five million women by 2020.

“If we do not help create sustainable communities where we operate and where we distribute our products, we will not be able to continue to operate,” Mr. Kent said. “If we do not do something about youth employment, the social mosaic as we know it is going to crack.”