New career paths for youth in Jordan: a documentary

ILO News JORDAN – Al Harith, Issa, Abeer, and Malek are four young people in Jordan who developed new skills and found their career paths through the Job Search Club (JSC) initiative.

In this documentary, they share their stories, challenges, dreams, and the success they have now achieved.

What makes it better is that they are not alone.

Across Jordan, over 1,400 Jordanian and Syrian youths have completed the intensive, career-focused training included in the JSC curriculum, implemented by the ILO, UNICEF, and the Business Development Centre (BDC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth.

The JSC programme was first launched in Egypt in 2014 and has been active in Jordan since 2022. It offers a two-week intensive job search program where participants receive coaching on job search skills from newly trained facilitators. After an initial assessment of their personal interests, skills, and occupational goals, participants learn how to gather job leads, conduct interviews, fill out applications, write CVs, and manage stress.

Following the training, they benefit from a three-month period of continued support from UN agencies, including assessments of their employment status.

The JSC programme is an ILO methodology, designed to help youth find suitable and decent work. It fosters peer-to-peer exchanges among job seekers, builds new connections, and allows participants to refine their job search strategies to match their qualifications and skill sets.

Through initiatives like these, the ILO and its partners aim to boost youth employment in Jordan. Before COVID-19, the youth unemployment rate in Jordan was 32 percent, but the pandemic has significantly increased this number. In 2022, youth unemployment for those aged 15-24 reached about 42 percent, according to the ILO, with the rate being even higher among young women.

The initiative is backed by the Kingdom of the Netherlands through the PROSPECTS partnership, a global partnership that aims to improve the access of host communities and forcibly displaced people to education, social protection and decent work.