A Series of Webinars on Soft Skills for Youth

ILO/INSIGHT II project and HIMSPI Jaya organize a series of webinars to address the issue of youth’s mental health and unemployment. The webinar will focus on what the need of the youth to improve their employability to secure their decent job.

Background

Transformative change in the world of work, driven by technological advancement, demographic change and abruptive conditions such as COVID-19 are creating significant impact in the way jobs and tasks within a job are being done, and on individuals in the world of work. In ASEAN-5, 56 per cent of jobs are at risk of automation over the next 20 years1  and nearly 50% of companies expect automation will lead to some reduction in their full-time workforce 20222. In Indonesia, as many as 23 million jobs could be displaced by automation by 2030, although between 27 million and 46 new million jobs could be created in the same period3. This impact is more pronounced for low-skilled and routine jobs (ILO 2019d); and for women and youth (ILO 2021).

According to Minister of State-Owned Enterprise as many as 3.5 million workers in Indonesia lost their jobs due to COVID-19 (IDX Channel, 2021). While the BPS reported number of open unemployment had increase from 6.93 million in February 2020 to 8.75 million, mainly due to COVID-19 pandemic (BPS, 2021).

The pandemic also has pushed workers and non-workers alike to adapt to new tecnologies on the way that they are working and communicating. From working with remote working applications using new machineries and connecting with others through chat applications and social media.

In addition, it is thus crucial to develop a policy and programme intervention addressing a future of work as result of industry revolution 4.0 in the post pandemic. Workers, particularly women, youth, and those working in routine jobs, need to have a skills to adapt to these transformative change. Not only do they need basic digital skills and literacy to adopt to new technologies, but they also need social and cognitive skills to navigate the changes, adjust to the ever-changing working conditions, and push themselves to learn new technical skills as part of up-skilling and re-skilling efforts.

Rapid Assessment of ICT Skills Demand in Indonesia (ILO 2020) found that employers expect their employees to have both technical and soft/core skills.

Against this backdrop, the ILO/INSIGHT II project plans to collaborate with HIMPSI Jaya, a psychologists association in Jakarta in which their members have different specialities and experiences to deal with and outreach both young and older populations. Through the collaboration, ILO/INSIGHT II project and HIMSPI Jaya plan to organize a series of webinars to address the issue of youth’s mental health and unemployment. The webinar will focus on what the need of the youth to improve their employability to secure their decent job.

Objectives

Objectives of the webinar series with the banner of soft skills for youth in improving their employability are the following:
  1. To increase awareness and knowledge of youth on the importance of soft skills contributing to their employability;
  2. To improve young people with practical skills to address mental health and their readiness for job search and application;
  3. To identify opportunities and challenges facing by the youth for their employability and job search.

Sessions and Schedules