Education and professional training challenges force the region to reinvent the professionalization of young people in a changing world of work. This information emerges from a report developed by the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The report “The future of professional training in Latin America and the Caribbean”, suggests a number of guidelines to close productivity, productive development and human resources gaps. Despite the fact that school attendance rates have grown, international measures show major drawbacks in the development of basic skills, such as mathematics, reading and sciences. In addition, there are large gaps in professional training.

This makes it necessary to set in motion new initiatives that anticipate changes that affects both, jobseekers and companies looking for talent, and that are key for sustainable and inclusive growth.

The current accelerate transformation process exposes the region to new change factors and an uncertain demand, due to novelty occupations, the massive obsolescence of several traditional skills due to technology, digitalization, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

ILO points out that in the region only one out of nine workers has some sort of training in a one year period, while OECD countries the percentage is above 50%.

The organization also states that several companies in Latin America say they experience difficulties to fill vacancies and to place staff with proper technical and socioemotional skills, which shows serious gaps between the supply and the demand, given the high levels of unemployment and underemployment, particularly among young people.

There is a clear correlation in Latin America between the size of the company, the education level, and the employment quality. The proportion of workers with superior education growths together with the size of the companies. In microenterprises is 15%, in small companies 28%, in medium companies 37%, and in large companies it is 50%. The education level is also highly correlated with informality, and though it affects nearly 50% of workers, the higher the educational level, the smaller the impact of informal employment.

Working on active employment policies that train people on skills based on the demand and ensure easy access to the labour market is key. Public employment services must work together with private employment agencies to create a more efficient environment. The countries in the region should ratify ILO Convention 181 to create a new context for the professional training of the future.