‘If there’s no bottom rung on the ladder, it’s really hard to jump over’: Nonprofit focused on recruiting Gen Z gets $25 million from Citi Foundation

The unemployment rate in the United States for degree holders between the ages of 22 and 27 is the highest The highest in twelve years outside the pandemic. Companies are reluctant to add employees Amidst a lot of economic uncertainty. The decline in employment particularly affects professions such as information technology, which employ more college graduates, creating nightmarish job searches for private sector workers. Increasingly fewer have completed university studies. Not to mention fears that artificial intelligence will replace entry-level roles.

So, the Citi Foundation has identified youth employability as the theme of its $25 million Global Innovation Challenge this year. The banking group’s philanthropic arm is donating half a million dollars to each of 50 groups around the world that provide digital literacy skills, technical training and career guidance to low-income youth.

“What we want to do is make sure that young people are as prepared as possible to find work in a world that is moving very quickly,” said Ed Skyler, head of corporate services and public affairs at Citi.

Employer feedback to the Citi Foundation indicated that early-career applicants lack the technical skills needed for roles that many have long been prepared to fill, highlighting the need for ongoing professional training and the importance of soft skills.

Skyler pointed to the World Economic Forum’s recent survey of more than 1,000 companies that collectively employ millions of people. Skills gaps were considered the biggest barrier to business transformation over the next five years. Two-thirds of survey respondents said they plan to hire people with specific AI skills, and 40% expect to eliminate jobs that AI can complete.

Some recipients respond by teaching people How to prompt AI chatbots To do work that can be automated. But Skyler stressed that it is equally important to fund efforts to impart qualities that AI lacks, such as teamwork, empathy, judgment, and communication.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all effort as we believe every young person needs to be able to code or interact with AI,” Skyler said. “The consistent thing in all programs is that we want to develop soft skills.”

Among the beneficiaries is the NPower Foundation, a national nonprofit that seeks to improve economic opportunities in underinvested communities by making digital jobs more accessible. Most of their students are young people between 18 and 26 years old.

The Citi Foundation grant will at least double the spaces available in the program for “green students” who have no technical background and often do not have a college degree, said Robert Vaughn, chief innovation officer at NPower.

Given the technology industry’s ever-changing requirements for skills and certifications, applicants need to demonstrate broad capabilities in both cloud computing and artificial intelligence as well as project management and emotional intelligence, he said.

As some entry-level roles become automated and outsourced, Vaughn said companies are not necessarily looking for college degrees and specialized skill sets, but rather the comfort of AI and general efficiency.

“Now it’s about being able to be more than just an isolated, isolated technical person,” he said. “You should actually be a customer service employee.”

Per Scholas, a non-profit organization for no-cost technology training, is another one of the recipients of the grants announced Tuesday. The funds will help advance the careers of about 600 young people in Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Chicago and the greater Washington, D.C., area, said Caitlin Brazil, its president.

To keep their lessons relevant, she spends a lot of time strategizing with small businesses and large organizations alike. The Citi Foundation’s focus on youth employability is particularly important, she said, because she often hears that AI productivity gains have forced companies to rethink entry-level roles.

Dwindling early career opportunities have forced workforce development nonprofits like hers to provide enough hands-on training to secure jobs that previously required more experience.

“But if there’s no bottom rung on the ladder, it’s really hard to jump to, isn’t it?” Brazil said.

She warned that failure to develop new career paths could harm the economy in the long term by preventing young people from obtaining high-growth jobs.

Martha Ross, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the fund was certainly right to focus on the disruption technology has brought to the labor market. But she said the scale of this disruption required a response that was “far too large for charity” alone.

“We haven’t handled previous displacements due to automation very well,” Ross said. “We left a lot of people behind. Now we have to decide whether or not to do it again.”

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