 Allright, ladies and gentlemen, thanks very much indeed for joining us, we're just after 6 o'clock so we're going to get under way because as we know time is short. My name is Ross Westgate, I'm from CNBC, I'm delighted to be able to help moderate this panel today, averting a lost generation. We've got some great people to talk about what was an extraordinarily important subject. In Japan it's called Freetas, a combination of freelance and German word, arbeit. Mae'r cyfweld yn Trafnidio. Mae'n Gwyl Hittis. Mae'n cyfrifiadau am gyfweld yn Lleon ag ysgol, ac yn Brydyn yn cyfrifiadau, mae'n gyfrifiadau. Mae'n cyfrifiadau i'w eistedd i'w amser, i'w cyfrifiadau o'r trafn. Mae'n cael ei ffordd o hyn oherwydd yng Nghaenewydd, y Llywodraeth, ym Mhwyloedd, eich cynnig o'r cyfrifiadau yma, ac yn y gallai cyfrifiadau yma'r cyfrifiadau. In the UK we hit one million unemployment in youth for the first time ever back in November. In Spain we know that total unemployment is over 20%. But youth unemployment is 40%. And the ILO suggests that employment for the age group in total around the world is 24%. And we've seen the implications of that of course starting from this time last year, with the Arab Spring. So what we're going to do today is see how the current generation of young people can reach their full bobl ond yw'r amser econom relativell, at ymgyrch yn cael eu gofynu'r gweithwyr yn ymgyrch ysblwyr yn ymgyrch o'r penodol a yw'r amser i'r gweithwyr. Rhywbeth ar hyn o'r gweithwyr hynny yn ymgyrch ysgol ar flynyddoedd yn ei ysbryddiad gan'u cefnogi, ans y llwyffol ymddangos ymgyrch ar gyfer lawer o'r ysbryd oon, ac mae'r ysgol oherwydd, mae'r bobl yn gweithio'r cyflugio ymddechrau. yw'r cymdeithas ymddangos y cyfrifol yng ngyfnodol? Felly, mae'n gweithio'r panel a mae'n gweithio'r gaelio'r llyfr. Mae'n gweithio'r ffinga ar y dyfodol, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio. Gweithio'r gweithio. Moris Llevy, y cerddau i'r CEO yw publysys. Mae'n gweithio'r arddangos, Al Karazani, y Prif Weiniddiad yw Jordan. Mae'n gweithio'r llyfr, felly mae'n gweithio'r Prif Weiniddiad. Mae'n gweithio'r Gweithio'r CEO yw ILO, ymarferwyr yma. Mae'n gweithio'r dymian, ysgolfydd IW, mae'n honno'r dynastudio ym Mhamedal Maddi, y CEO yw Sabyc. Yn ystod y ffordd, mae'n gweithio'r dynastudio'r gennych. Felly, ddim yn gweithio'r panel a'n ddod yn gweithio'r arall, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r arddangos, a dwy'n cael ei casodd ar y drefudd gyda'r gen이wyr, rydych chi'n sefyllfa fednaf yn gyngor wych yn gyffredig. A gynhar angen i'r lle, yn roi'r ddadig yng Nghymru, ond Maelifau Patwys,олen tregwp, a Moramonau Goenari rydyn nhw gynhar maelifau. Rwy'n cael eu gael blwyddyn, Rounamogoghaidd Coldorun, unrhyw sy'n ddwy'r eu phóreo, allan o'r geniwyr fit yn cael ei gynharia, yw'r ffordd o'r ffordd? A'r ffordd o'r ffordd? Yn mynd i'r ffordd? John-A-Moe, yna'r ffawr o'r ffordd? Felly mae'r gael. Hei Rhywodd, ddweud y cwestiwn. Hei, ddweud y cwestiwn. Fy ffwrdd, rydw i'n gweithio'n cwestiwn, rydw i'n gweithio'n panel ac mae'r ffwrdd yn ymddangos o'r problemu yn ymddangos ac mae'n ffwrdd yn ei ddweud o'r pwynghau o'r genes. Roedd o'n biasedio'n gweithio ac mae genedlaethol pethau a wneud hynny fy ngllun 5 a 50. Felly, ddim yn rhan ofnwyd y mewn gweithio'n gweithio, mae'n funud i'n credu ein oed nad ydych chi'n cael sy'n oes os substitute o'r cyddiad ymddangos. Nig trwy wi o fathio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. a phустio'r ddweud sydd hwn i'ch gennym, a gwybod от amser yn y dweud. A mor yma chi wedi'i bywyd yn edrych y ddweud yr pawb yn mynd i'ch gwaith. Mae'r genrych ddweud. Mae yna'r ddysgu'r newydd. Mblai'r ddweud y ddweud yn y ddweud. Mae ddweud yn ddweud. Mae ddweud ddweud hynny. Mae rydyn ni'n mynd i ni i ddim adael. Rhyw hoffa'ch flofydd â'r panel yw'r cyfnod. So, Maurice? I'm here. Are you actually the right people? I mean in a sense you've got the power because you're policy holders, you're running companies. But you've got to understand what these people hope and want for and what they can deliver. I think that the question is right. And the first thing I did when I received the invitation to participate in this panel was to ask myself if I was the right person to sit in that panel. And I'm not sure that I'm the right person. So we will see at the end if I can contribute. But clearly it is a very important question. And the only thing I can say is that in our company which is a relatively small company because we have only 50,000 people around the world, 56, the average age is 31, slightly less than 31. So the fact that we can manage a company of that size and the vibrancy of the company is really linked to the young generation. The other aspect is that our key feed for thoughts for innovation is coming from that generation. So we are in tune. Am I the right person to sit down here and to speak? I'm not sure. And if you wish, we can trade. I'm ready to sit here and you take my seat. I have absolutely no problem. Regarding the young generation, the white generation, as we are in a time where people like very much to give notes, I would say that it is AAA. It is adventurous. It is altruistic. And it is able. They are skilled. And we should not think that they are not ready. This would be wrong. And I would like to add an E because they are also ethical. And the way they are pushing us to be more ethical is very important. While my generation, particularly in Europe, is much more AAA. It is apathetic and anesthesised. So you see, I'm totally with you on that front. OK, Maurice. Thank you for that. You said something that was quite important. You said Europe. And so we're going to be talking about Europe, Middle East and the United States. And they are three separate areas. But one, let's concentrate on Europe. What are the hopes and the aspirations? What do European youth have to offer? And what is it that organisations can deliver? Can we meet their aspirations? I think that the point of voice participation in the decision making is at the core, not just of youth, but much, much wider. What has happened in the world in the last couple of years is that youth have interpreted that much wider sentiment in society. About 100,000 protests worldwide in 82 countries, 1,000 protests in cities in 82 countries. It's led by youth, the most highly educated level of youth we've had and the most technologically savvy. And when they look at the world today, and I think that this is what I'm listening from what you're saying, is we don't seem to be a priority, together with all of the others that are excluded. So I think that this is a much wider process which the young people today are at the head of saying, look, if we take a look at the unemployment levels, ours is two, three and four and five times that of adults, if we take a look at the education we have mismatched, if we take a look at the participation we have not existed. So how do you want us to have trust in this society in which clearly so we are not a priority? And the question that you're posing and that we all have to answer together is how do we change the mix of policies? Because if we continue this way, the issue of the lost generation is going to be real, it's going to be not just a lost generation, but a society that is so affected by the fact that we can't respond to these questions and that the consequences are going to be much higher. In some places it's political, in others it's socio-economic, in others it's cultural. In the end, the need to think together about all of this is essential. Our job as an international labour organisation is to bring together business and workers and civil society and governments and say, let's use dialogue to address these questions. Our conference this year is going to deal with youth unemployment in January, in June, and we're doing a global consultation with youth, we're going to have a youth forum before that, but they're going to be in the room proposing solutions also. These are minor things. You ask us the question and I'm telling the types of things that we're doing. The problem is much deeper. There is no understanding of the lack of priority that young people's issues have today beyond jobs in general. Let me ask just one of the global shapers here. Eleni, you're talking about your inter-technology. Do you feel your generation thinks that there are the right opportunities for them? First of all, I think when we talk about Europe, we have to make clear which region we are talking about because I see that there are regional divides in the world concerning young generations. If we are talking about the lost generation in Europe, this is one thing, but there are lost generations in other regions of the world that are much more lost than the European generation. Your question is about what are the opportunities for us that technology brings. Definitely because we are more savvy in technology than the older generations. We use it for our benefit and we basically can make our voice heard using this technology, but very often all these discussions and all these bragging it stays online and it's not really realized in the real world. In some way this technology is also absorbing our energy and effort, but in other ways it mobilizes us for action. It's like the double effect and it's hard to say which prevails. You mentioned technology, which brings us on to the next part of the region because technology, undoubtedly for young people, has played a huge role social media with the Arab Spring in the Middle East. The hopes and aspirations for the Middle East are very different, Prime Minister. The people in the Middle East, it's not just about having got jobs, it's about can I feed myself as a sense of hopelessness. Give us your sense a year on now with the Arab Spring and the still ongoing troubles we have in your part of the world. What do your young people want? Let me start by saying that there is a constant theme in Arabic and possibly in Islamic culture that there will always be a misunderstanding between different generations. A misunderstanding because each, because times are not static and this is often expressed in the saying, bring up your children for a time different from your times. And it is also expressed in another saying by 16th century Egyptian jurist which says the wisest of men are those who can best interpret their times. This is another way to say or atio oblika that there will be a misunderstanding between different generations. And I think that is also a testimony to the fact that what looks from the outside as a static thing in fact may carry much more change and transience than we think. But when I came to office three months ago and I was in the process of forming government I was really struck by how much this gap, how big this gap is in Jordan. I cannot say for the rest of the Middle East and I'm not sure that there is a division between people in the Middle East and Europe and probably there are divisions within those regions. It is not a question of unemployment. Unemployment is very important in a country like Jordan. It is, as you said, much deeper than that. It's an identity sometimes question. I don't want to see an identity crisis that is too strong description of the situation. And I see it is not just a question of unemployment because Jordan is one of those countries which is paradoxical in that our, as a government our most important job now is to provide employment at a time of a sharp contraction in the economy. But at the same time we have something like 600,000 foreign workers. So I mean it is sort of structural also. It's deeper a population that was essentially until a generation or two ago, nomadic or transhumans state of affairs, all of a sudden acquiring education. I don't want to jump to the question of education. Is it fair to say though that in the Middle East where we've seen the Arab Spring uprising it's stemmed as much from a sense of they had no control young people, no sense of a future, no sense that they had a control of what their future was going to be. An employment and having a job and having the prospect of having a job is part of that. This must be one of the reasons, probably one of the more important reasons. But causation links in social sciences are not as clear as we would like them to be. And sometimes I think because we are a spring of economic, they appear to be so. I've been judging by Abu Azizi in Tunisia. Others say this is part of a reaction to a state of stagnation, political and now economic on top of that and humiliation on a systematic way. So when this implosion took place it was commensurate with the length, the duration and the intensity of the humiliation. I mean the Arab world, the human rights in the Arab world were much better in the 50s than they were in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s. Is it a cause of a very basic human quest for justice and an idea not to accept injustice? Is it just economics? Is it a case of rising expectations followed by a sharp decline? All these are possible causes. There's a lot of things linked. It is even different though within the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has one of the great benefits. It has a lot of money. That's very helpful. Yes, you're absolutely right. But the situation is different from Jordan. For example, in my country there is many jobs that are occupied by foreign labour. The problem of the young generation in my country is a mismatch between the education and the job market. It will take really a good collaboration between government, major employers like my company and also the academia to come up with a way to bring this education to the level of the job market. Secondly, it's not enough to have good education. You have to really have the right values. When I talk about values, the job ethics, you have to bring the young people to really realize that the job is about working environment, respecting the work ethics of an organization, coming early in the morning, going late in the evening, and respecting the rules of the organization. This is very important for us. I think you need the old, the young, and those in the middle to really run an organization, run in a country. Yes, the young people have energy and productivity, but also the old generation have wisdom that both of us can work as mentors for the young generation and really act like a support system for them for the job market. You raised a very good point now. It's not just about the employers and the government being ready to take young people. This is what we're discussing, is that young people themselves have the attitudes or the skills to involve, and it's not just geographically that's different area. It's also across social structures. If you're part of certain social structures in the United States, actually, are they equipped, are they emotionally equipped, are they able, if there was a job, to be able to take it? Right. Well, first I want to say thanks to Maurice for saying how wonderful my generation is, because he's right. If we look at recent studies from the United States, 99% of young people in the U.S. want a job that changes the world for the better. So these are young people who are going out there and saying, if I'm getting a job, whether it's at a bank or an NGO or an academic institution, it better be environmentally sustainable, it better have diversity practice in place that I like, and if they're not going to have that, they're going to start their own venture, whether it's for profit or not for profit, and make sure that they're being a social entrepreneur so that they leave a positive impact on the world. I think the sort of three A's with the ethics involved is one great thing that my generation has to provide. But as you mentioned about the demographics that we need to look at, in the United States, the unemployment rates aren't as dire as in some other countries, but when you break it down by demographics, you'll see that young African American males have twice the unemployment rates of other categories. They're more prone to go to jail, less prone to graduate from college. Only 15% of African American males in public schools are even ready for college. And so, in the US, while we're solving these unemployment problems, let's also make sure that we're looking out for differences in terms of race, economic class, and sort of bringing everyone up instead of just focusing on the people on the top. Is it possible? Is it possible to raise all boats together? Well, I think you can tell I'm a pretty positive person. So absolutely. I mean, I hate to be cliche, but the real issue here is education. And if we educate our young people, I absolutely think that we should leave no one behind. Peter, great time to bring you in education. Education is critical for many dimensions and needs to start very young. And the US is letting down large numbers of young people inadequate preschool, a lot of bad schools. I view the education story as more complex over the issue of breadth versus narrowness, over the issue of more depth, which you can get with narrowness that you don't get with breadth. The ongoing education, the diversity in jobs, what kind of education will give you a satisfying career? What kind of education will put you in the place of experimenting out in the world? Because that's the way you succeed. You think of the job process as an experiment that requires evaluation and the mindset of experiment. And the problem we're having in the US with the high current unemployment is a problem that's terrible for the young. They don't just lose earnings now, but they're not accumulating experience. Average earnings rise sharply from leaving school into your mid-30s in the US. And that is heavily driven by experience, not just experience acquiring skills in the job, but experience moving from job to job, finding the right niche for yourself. So I view the US as having an unemployment crisis right now. And we have a debt problem. And my concern about Washington is it seems to act as if we had a debt crisis and only an unemployment problem. And that's unfortunate. Yeah, and the thing about demographics is, we know today how many people there are going to be in 15 years. And if we continue the stats today, we know what percentage of those people are going to be unemployed if we don't do anything. But you talked about education. Let's look at some of the solutions here. And I'm going to throw up Germany. Europe's in a recession at the moment. Yet German unemployment is down to levels that they haven't seen since 1992. So is the German model the right model? Do they have the right ability to tie up the educational needs of their people with what their industry and their services need? Is that the model that actually everybody else should be copying? Jeff Joyce, you're a CEO of Manpower. Is that the model? That's a great question. In fact, I had a chance to speak with the Chancellor about that because she had asked me the question. And I said, right now, there is no doubt about it. There is an incredible model. But when you look at education, employment, youth unemployment, each country has its own ecosystem and you just can't pick one up and place it into another and expect it to work because it has social mores associated with it. So what it really comes down to is we have a bridge between trying to get people into the workforce, particularly young people, and basically in some ways a distrust about am I hiring the kind of skill that I want? And the real question is how do you bridge that faster and it's getting them into the workforce because they're missing that growth early on that's the experience. And we can all be social entrepreneurs but it's also sometimes hard for everyone to be a social entrepreneur because it doesn't drive the basic facts of it. So I'd actually like to pose a question and say there is a problem. Let's have some fun with it. Old people may not recognize what young people have but how can young people add to the conversation to say and articulate what I can add in a way that makes it compelling because I think that's a critical part of it. Aria? Well, I think that it's very clear that I work with 2 million young people on a regular basis in the United States and one of the things that we do is we focus on volunteerism to create leadership training so that young people can clearly articulate that while I might not have years experience in a job through the bone marrow donation drive that I ran I learned how to organize people, I learned how to public speak, I learned how to lead my generation and I'm going to take all of those skills that I can into the workforce and I couldn't agree more that the jobs isn't just about income. If we're not building the skills for these young people they will never be able to re-enter the workforce and be the production people that they should be. Maurice? In Germany I think that there is two elements to the resolution of the problem of unemployment. The first one is the fact that historically Germany has been always helping with the apprenticeship and the fact that people were integrated in the companies very early on. So they were familiar to the job, familiar to the company, they understood very early and when they were learning in this environment it was relatively easy then to make them an offer and to find the right person. The second aspect which I believe is probably the most important one is the fact that Germany has had his adjournamento with the agenda 2010 with Gerhard Schröder and what he did. They think that as long as we have economies we are supporting a lot of cost and where labour costs, social charges are an impediment to productivity and to competitivity there is no way that company will create jobs and I think we have to be honest and if we want to create jobs we have to do both. We have to help employment and to open a real chapter of employability in order that the people who we are responsible for we give them not only a job but the education and the training all along the time they are with us in order that when they are restructuring an accident of life or whatever they are ready to take over their jobs. The second thing is that we need to be competitive as I am speaking for Europe and today the vast majority of the corporation had to deal with this issue and the only solution they found was offshoring and outsourcing which was the easy way but not the right one. What is the right one? I think that you are perfectly right that every country has its own ecology. I think that what we can learn from Germany is that every one of the things that Maurice mentioned were agreed through social dialogue. Employers, workers coming together at the enterprise level, at the sector level, national level, the government participating. Social dialogue, analysing your country's reality coming together in very different realities but agreeing on what is the best way of going about in that particular country I think is essential. That has to do with the other question of how is it that you make the labour market work? You don't have a solution. You have to reform labour law and everything will change. It doesn't change. What you need is something that is applicable to different realities but there's one reality that is applicable everywhere. We now have 200 million unemployed. Four out of ten people are young people. You have 400 million people coming into the labour market in the next ten years. How are you going to produce those jobs? You have to do the educational part but it's not enough. The economy that produces the volume of jobs that is going to be able to cope that and we don't have those economic models today. And one of the biggest challenges that the world of Davos has is to see how is it that business is part of a new model. We discuss the context of labour and others in order to produce the types of jobs that are necessary, the volume of jobs that are necessary in the future. This is the essence of the problem. It's a traditional part and you can wind up with lawyers driving taxes in developing countries. And not to speak of what is happening now in Europe. 45% unemployment in Spain. That means that you have a pretty flexible labour system. If you can go from where they were to 45% or you went from 8% unemployment to 20% unemployment in a couple of years. So the problem is not the flexibility of the labour market. The problem is how do we agree that job creation is the central objective of economic policy. What we have now is that you concentrate on things that are essential but you don't concentrate on jobs that are objective. You mentioned that Peter, but isn't the Fed just last night come out and said and effectively said they're going to direct their monetary policy to job creation. In an election year everybody making job creation the number one policy that their administration is going to deliver. Well there's a lot of diversity in the U.S. as to what sorts of things create jobs. And I think it's important to recognize that all around the globe there are short run problems and long run problems. Long run problems are where the education matters. Where the labour laws matter. Where the environment for business corruption of the quality of the court systems. The quality of the underpinning commercial law. All of those things matter because the profitability of business and so for the ability of business to hire people they won't do it if it's not profitable. And so that profitability has to be built into the structure and Germany spent years overhauling its labour rigidities to have more fluctuations. We read in the paper about the guild systems in Italy and Greece and the difficulty of reforming them to open up jobs. So I think there's a basic economic framework. Around that we have a short run problem. Some countries have such a severe debt problem that they're badly handicapped in dealing with that. Austerity is terrible for growth. And so the issue is to do as little austerity as you can afford and still deal with the debt process. And I call it a process where countries like the U.S. where we have significant debt we have an eventually unsustainable system but we don't need to do any austerity right now. We should be investing in the things like infrastructure that themselves create jobs but more important create a more valuable economic environment. And not only can we afford it but it's cheaper to do it now than later. And stuff the economy needs better to do it now. Prime Minister, I'll just bring you on here. If you don't have the big budgets how do you go about creating the jobs? How do you create that partnership between government and business and get the right legislation? Our hope in Jordan of course is to attract foreign investment basically from the Arab world and the Gulf in particular. We think that the situation is opportun for this type of investments to come to Jordan. Though we have to go through some austerity measures we are also making sure that this does not bring the economy to a stand still. It's a question of where do you find that delicate balance between the two opposite aims of government? I suppose that is a dilemma or maybe a dilemma even that faces all all governments. But if I may just revert for a minute with your permission to the question of education to understand that it is a long term one. In a country like Jordan I think it's very important. What we have had is an expansion in education but in nature in general there is always an inverse relationship between quantity and quality. I think that if we don't do something about it then all that creation of jobs and we will only work in the short term but in the long term it would not be based on a solid foundation. I think in the long run that is really a very important thing. There are two issues I want to raise in terms of regulation and policy and let's knock these on the head first of all. Tijantiam, the CEO of Prudential said today in an earlier session here in Davos that the minimum wage legislation he is talking about Europe here is the enemy of young people it destroys jobs. The second point is also about retirement age because we are talking about economic budgets many countries in Europe are raising retirement ages so if you are stopping people from retiring are you excluding jobs to young people so let's deal with that last one first Juan. Raising retirement age, every government in Europe is now raising their retirement ages is that making youth unemployment worse? The studies you have around that issue show the studies were the other ones when you reduced the age that was done 15 or 20 years ago in some countries there was no effect on youth employment so the linkage is not there so we can put it all the studies show that we can put that aside Everyone else happy with that? Jeffrey? It's true about the studies the challenge is that it brings in in motion you can talk to the French student who says I want my parent to retire so I can take their job but it doesn't happen but we have to educate more that's really not there and the youth challenges is their feeling as though they are being stopped because there are blockers in the labour market Let's ask when you see retirement ages being raised do you think my fellow youth generation where are they going to get the jobs one do you have that feeling? I can only speak for myself and I don't want to take someone else's job I want to create my own and I think that goes along the things that Arya has been talking about and I think we need to make a difference between there is high talents and I always keep hearing about this fight, this war for talent that's happening That's a great devil's phrase and I think companies are losing right now because the talent because we have these different values and we try to do it on our own I've met a couple of young global leaders who were at big companies and they left and they did their own thing so that's one thing, so I wonder it's in your own interest to change to adapt the rules you impose like working hours make that more flexible think about what you have really to follow up on your comment I think the essential problem I just tweeted that before is there's a lack of communication you're not offering us the jobs we're seeking although we get a job we're not really motivated you invest in us and after two years we take off to another company it's not productive, everyone is losing out and you were pointing at us and saying you're lazy, you're not motivated instead of sitting together and thinking about what's the new frame what are the new jobs that are adapted to our needs just come back from that I just would like to add a point here I mean about the whole debate investing in young people some people consider it a cost and we consider it an investment it takes a long time to bring a young person take a mould him in leadership development take him until he's a productive age and many people do not have the patience to do that in my company for example you take people from high school from high school and we send them for education to get higher education in the right skills we want them to be in then we bring them back and then we put them on the job with mentoring with people trying to help them we have an academy to do that we spend money on that and you are not going to see their productivity maybe three years later and I think if we change this mindset about this and consider it an investment it will not pay for the long term if we consider it as a cost and my company is investing a great amount of money to your honest point how do you meet expectations with reality and make sure this investment doesn't result after you've given them all this training after two years as he says actually this is more than I thought it was so I'm going somewhere else and they don't have the career they thought it was how do you close the gap well I have to involve them I have to give them the job immediately and put them in confidence and have them producing in the first day Maurice I would like to come to first the reaction of the fact that we are reducing the workforce and that we will create jobs for example we had 35 hours in France which is very famous and when this has been created everyone was believing that as people will work less we will create more jobs and that the end result is that we have created more unemployment because in our world jobs are creating jobs the more we work the more we create jobs that is the reality so if we can keep the elder generation and create jobs for the newer generation this is the perfect system what about minimum wage is Tijantiam right minimum wage legislation is the enemy of young people that is one of the problem we have another problem we have for example if I'm putting tomorrow an ad saying that I would like to recruit young people I can be sued because I have not the right to say I'm going to recruit young people I have to put an ad and whoever is coming and the right person is coming I have to hire for the job if he's right for the job he or she I cannot make a discrimination by age or anything regarding now what you have said about frustration we are investing a lot with young people and we are recruiting out of the schools, the university people are starting up with us and sometimes they stay and they stay long and they build a career sometimes they are frustrated because it's an organization, it's heavy they don't see a fit and sometimes we have another problem which is that we are not offering exactly what they want and they feel frustrated, they go elsewhere and they feel frustrated because there is and this has been said a mismatch a mismatch between the educational system, the fact that in my country for example it's very hard to speak to the education organization and to say administration in fact and to say okay these are the kind of people we need, we want skills we need and they will consider that this is an insult to their mission of education and if they are creating people who are highly skilled in sociology and that nobody will use them they will consider that this is right because this is their mission so we have that mismatch and one of the example which is pretty clear when you look at unemployment not only in my country but in many European countries you see that there is a lot of jobs offered who are not taken because there is a scarcity of talent and skills for those jobs why there is a raising an employment so I think that if we want to address the issue we really have to open a dialogue and to say okay and to have all the parties, the unions the education, all the people who are involved and say okay how are we going to fix the issue we can't fix the issue only from the side of the corporations as good as we can be or as bad as we can be you raised something there that was just struck a chord because the last time I was in this room I was doing a gender debate and what came up in that was positive discrimination, something they tried in Norway was they said we're just going to make it a law we're just going to make it a law 50% of your boards 50% of your task force have to be women so can positive discrimination work youth employment could we pass laws where we say X percentage of your company should be people of a certain age if the law pass is fine in our case we have not that issue because in our case we have the vast majority of our population who are under 30 the average age is 31 so to get an average age of 31 with a CEO of my age I can guarantee you that you need to have a very large number of people under 30 the second aspect is that we have a majority of people who are women and we have our own positive approach to diversity we believe in diversity we invest in diversity, we train people we educate people we do a lot of things in order to tackle this issue so we do what laws permit us to do but I think our example is not good enough let's bring it on that point would young people like to think that businesses add one thing the majority of our board is women that's fine is that something actually you think if companies if everybody's thinking and maybe are compelled by law to think we have to employ as many young people as possible make the difference or not to me that is not the solution to the problem I think that's one of those quick fixes that we can put in place that we think is a panacea that will solve everything and again it's the skill mismatch while I agree with Geronimo that certain young people will take a job for two years then a job for one then a job for three that's not true of all young people who are very skilled and have a good education and have those choices so let's be very clear about what segments of young people we're talking about and it's the long-term unemployed are the ones that have least education have come from least economic backgrounds so what is the minimum standard of education and a lot of people in the UK leave school at 16 what is a minimum standard of education that they you've looked at this what minimum standard of education that young people should have that at least gives them some skills to get some kind of job and do they need apprenticeships where do we go Ross it's an interesting question but it also takes us back to the country by country model the German example is actually quite compelling there are examples where children from certain economic groups in Germany are tracked into skills jobs craft jobs vocational type jobs teachers of 10, 12, 14 and if they actually reach a certain level of acumen at that point they might be put back into more formal school or what I call more traditional school in order to demonstrate it so I think part of this is not trying to be too prescriptive and assuming that everyone is coming from a middle class or up a middle class or working class background and looking at it in a much more segmented way I'd like to get global shapers have been listening do you have any thoughts or questions you'd like to put to anybody here yes I think on a youth unemployment it's quite natural a phenomena and a very structural issue because the population is growing and the consumers love something more efficient and convenient for example I left Twitter and I'm tweeting and I can deliver a message to millions of people but imagine 100 years ago how many people need to be involved to deliver a message to millions of people so it's quite natural that unemployment happens at this moment and of course people start to first start to hire less people before they start to fire people so of course unemployment happen among the youth generation so in my opinion what we need to think is we as a consumer need to create the new value which we really think something very cool wanted to pay money to buy that but it's more a bit leathery intensive which can create jobs for the world and also so it's a market side and if you see the supply side also we need to think how we can incentivise the companies to create jobs if they just pursue the profitability it's quite natural we have less jobs I would just like to follow on that because I think that one dimension of the way we have to look at work which is what's the value of working society I'm getting away from the nitty gritty of how you create jobs and I'm afraid that the way work is looked at work is a cost of production so as low as possible the worker is a consumer so hopefully has power to consume since wages have not followed productivity for a long long time and they've kept here and productivity has gone up you know people are getting debted so you supply what you should have gotten through wages linked to productivity through debt and then we forget completely about the fact that work is a source of personal dignity and it's probably one of the principle sources of personal dignity because you approve yourself in work and everybody in this room proves itself in work second it's a source of stability of families, households in whichever way people will choose to live together you know an unemployed family is a very unhappy family an unemployed household is a very unhappy family and it produces all sorts of social consequences never measure them never take them into account we never link those types of problems with lack of jobs and third you know work and decent work quality work is a source of peace in the community so I would just like to make these points because if we treat work exclusively at this mechanical phenomenon of you invest, you create jobs, you do this we're going to totally miss the picture the only way we're going to be able to get to the real issue is we are not producing enough volume of jobs is because we come to the conclusion that if we don't the social impact of society is enormous and this is the real issue and how is it that we all agree political power is in government and opposition society in general how is it that we say look we're going to take a collective decision to revalue the significance of work in society because I think that today it is devalued we have devalued we have devalued the dignity of work and the value of work in society and yet every politician you speak to around the globe will tell you in any interview they are concerned about employment they are concerned about creating jobs but they're going to talk about it in two terms cost of production and people having more to consume and that's precisely my point if we don't understand that this has to do with the fabric of society or the societies we live in and that causes as much more reason what he does or the prime minister and what he does and the professor in what he does and what you're doing and your work how we all come together to say we have to revalue work how can we have transformed work which is of the essence of our identity into a mechanical economic product in which it's just cost of production and the person is just a consumer of today Good evening I'm Birama from Mali so I would like to talk about education in Africa but first of all let me say that in America in Europe in developed countries in general you are really lucky because I believe you have a good educational system your students have access to many facilities to computer labs to libraries in Africa it's different we barely have access to computers I would like to have a positive energy but it's really difficult to reach our full potentials in public schools for example classrooms can take up to 150 children in our universities in Mali at least students have been using the same books for more than 15 years so how can we get better skills and meet the expectations of job markets under such conditions Birama can I ask you a question about that there is a perception that technology modern communication the internet mobile internet will help help in places like Africa is there evidence that it is is that part of the solution or not yes but the cost remains very expensive and only few people have access to internet to computers so maybe governments need to work on that anybody in the panel wants to respond to the particular challenges is putting a enormous problem on the table it's enormous and I know that for those countries situation is absolutely terrible there is a story that has been reported by somebody marching in Africa so he was very pleased he was explaining that he has been marching for 3 years and he went through a lot of countries in Africa and he has been accompanied by a boy for a moment and he was going from a village and the boy was saying ok I will go with you because I'm going to school and after one hour he said but where is school it's just here second hour where is your school it's just nearby he took him 3 hours to get to the school and 3 hours back so when you see this you can only be stunned to say we have to do something obviously individually everyone does what he can but there is certainly a massive problem where by our situation look really a little bit a situation of rich people I think it's going to take a collective approach between technology major companies to come together and bring technology a cheaper computer for example and to be supported by investment from companies like myself and others to bring this computer to countries like your country where they can educate themselves via the internet and there are machines that are very cheap and it can be subsidised the good news is technology does tend to get cheaper I'll just quote this one because I thought it was fascinating Jared Lyons was in a session today and he tweeted this and he says in IT they reckon this quote came out for every job lost to IT so off-shoreing whatever else it is 2.1 jobs are created so you're nodding your heads you agree with that I just thought I put that stand out there because we have this view that technology takes away jobs today here in Davos they're suggesting that's not the case John last five minutes you've got a question I'd be interested in running a model by the panel and I think particularly starting with you given that you work with so many young people I don't want to use the term national service I want to use the word let's call it work for life or working for life let's say that there was a UN resolution 130, 140, 150 countries agreed that between the ages of 15 and 24 there had to be a mandatory two-year placement that the government in that country and certain corporations and certain educational institutions would require one of ten things teach, work in logistics plant trees, go to the army and basically people would get a network a sense of self esteem the dignity of a job they develop a sense of self confidence the only argument I hear against this is you can't force people to do that I'd be interested in knowing how you think young people would react to that I'd be interested in knowing how people would react to it because my own personal view is that people would in many countries of the world develop a sense of camaraderie a sense of network and a sense of self confidence and some skills that would allow them to move on but I'd be wondering why people don't look at that model more seriously a compulsion we've got literally three minutes left so I think this would be an excellent point to leave this debate on so let's get very quick answers I think compulsion to do something for two years I think compulsion to do something is great I think that you can absolutely make young people do that and I think they would welcome it just anecdotally we have five high school students in our office who are interning they're 15 years old they go to a terrible public school in New York City and the two days a week that they get to volunteer at our office they say are the best things they've ever done they get to interact with employees, they get to build skills and they absolutely support you let's make it happen Maurice, very quickly I fully agree and I think that we should generate more kind of not compulsory I hate compulsory but voluntary it's a bit like a great haircut it's not compulsory, it's voluntary but it kind of is compulsory no no no I think we can convince the people to do that they are forced to and they don't believe that this is a good thing if you sell the benefits of it enough people sign I promise that well on this occasion I have nothing I'm at a verse to the use of the word compulsion I think it will be a good idea in fact there is already in the UN a voluntary program it's called UN Volunteers so we can certainly build on that and a final point of the whole debate we began by saying that not enough importance to young to youth I think that let's not forget while we are ending this that the priority to youth and creating the conditions for them to be part of not only the discussion but the decisions is I believe absolutely essential in different countries in different ways in different cultures in different modes but absolutely essential is a global objective that we all have to push for I have nothing to add I think that that is a plan that fails to recognize the heterogeneity of the population it would work terrifically for some people it would be wasted years for other people and I think as an idea it's a bad one that's actually the American reaction but remember people the reality is people are going to live to 80 or 90 years today so you're talking about two years out of their life to provide a period of nurturing you're providing a very academic analysis rather than a practical one that gives someone real work experience and we're talking about experience in the workplace here I want to leave the final word where we started let's leave the final word on this with the younger people in the room Thank you very much Is this what you were referring to how they react when you make a proposition? No I think that compulsion is not going to work but if you make this accessible for one part and Ari and I we are working on that and I have facts I can show you how people who volunteer that volunteer in my organization find a job days after they finish the project because it valorizes them and they have studied sociology what they were passionate about but they have been competent through a voluntary commitment to do that so that is something really I think that is huge to promote and also at other panels I was we always talk about education and then we have fantastic people representing incredible great universities but what about the teachers what about the teachers I believe they are so essential they are so important and they are not valorized and they are not the best people I should be the best people who become teachers and I feel that would be great if next year we could have some teachers it would be great if everybody in Davils this year maybe next year gave up their jobs and became teachers for a year maybe that would be part of something that would help they gave up their salaries and became teachers and that would be part of it I want to thank everybody here it is a very important subject I think what struck me was this idea that we all need to value work in a completely different way maybe if we start that process it takes us to some of the solutions but thank you all very much for your time