European Businesses Pledge Thousands Of Youth Jobs

A group of major European companies have launched an effort to create work for tens of thousands of jobless youngsters. The firms think young people's digital skills need to be tapped to overcome rampant unemployment.



About 200 European companies on Thursday announced a jobs initiative aimed at providing work and training opportunities for young jobless Europeans.



The group, which calls itself Alliance for Youth, said it wanted to create additional jobs as well as apprenticeships and internships.



"We are confident that more than 100,000 opportunities will be given in the coming years, but it should go beyond that," Laurent Freixe, Chief Executive of Nestle Europe, told reporters.



The world's largest food company Nestle is joined in the endeavor by other major European firms such as Adecco, AXA, Cargill, Facebook, Google, Nielsen, Salesforce, Twitter.



Currently, one out of four youngsters in Europe is unemployed. In Spain and Greece joblessness among young people is twice as high as a result of years of recession following the 2008 financial crisis. According to a recent survey made by US-based pollster Nielsen a majority of 55 percent of young Europeans believes that governments are not doing enough to create jobs for them.



Nestle's Laurent Freixe said rampant youth unemployment was hampering Europe's economic recovery. And Google's President for Business and Operations in Europe, Matt Brittin told reporters at the launch of the initiative that young people's digital skills must be tapped to create innovative jobs.



"We need to turn our kids into brilliant digital entrepreneurs," he said.



Part of the companies' initiative is an effort to overcome what they called "a mismatch" between school and university education, and the needs of businesses on the ground. Frank Van Lierde, Cargill Executive Vice President, said: "We feel that companies have an important role to play in filling this gap."



Therefore, the initiative said it would set up a mentoring program for young people to make them fit for the demands of work life.



uhe/rs (dpa, AP)