Challenges

With a youth unemployment rate of nearly 40% in 2019, job creation and job matching are two of the most pressing socio-economic issues facing Jordan’s youth today. Young people below 30 years of age account for nearly 75% of Jordan’s population, but the market has struggled to integrate younger generations. Jordan’s labor force participation rate is among the lowest in the world, with only 36% of Jordanians age 15 and above working to support a population of 9.7 million. Women’s labor force participation in Jordan is particularly low, with only 14% of working-age women employed. There are many NGOs working to empower youth in Jordan; however, most are specialized in one area only, be it training, mentorship or micro-entrepreneurship. EFE-Jordan’s model is unique in that it incorporates not only vocational training, but also a rigorous youth sourcing process.

Toward a Solution

EFE-Jordan is holistic; end-to-end training solution with a focus on selecting youth ensures high job placement rates. EFE-Jordan seeks to close the gap between the demands of private-sector employers and unemployed youth by delivering tailored-made training programs to high-potential youth that match the needs of the market.

Project Objectives:

• To create awareness about the importance of filtering and selecting beneficiaries to match programming
• To educate organizations on EFE-Jordan’s best practices for selecting youth and matching them with jobs after program completion.
• To educate organizations on the importance of connecting with the private sector to design criteria for selecting beneficiaries that match market demand.

EFE-Jordan’s extensive experience in delivering job training and placement programs has highlighted the importance of focusing on youth sourcing to maximize each beneficiary’s potential to succeed in securing and retaining a job. Through its sourcing process, EFE-Jordan recruits a pool of viable candidates and then conducts a multi-step application and assessment process in order to select and accept the youth who are the best for the program. EFE-Jordan works with its partners to determine the selection criteria of youth for each project and sources accordingly.

Outreach to young Jordanians and Syrian refugees is conducted using three primary methods: 

1. advertisements in traditional and social media,
2. outreach through partner community-based organizations
3. meetings with youth, their family members, and local community leaders. 

The latter are especially critical for recruiting female applicants, as they help EFE-Jordan gain the support and buy-in of the community and participants’ families before the start of the training, ensuring better applications, job placements, and retention rates. Beneficiaries are then carefully selected following two face-to-face interviews with short-listed candidates, and then matched with the appropriate training based on market need and the candidate’s skill, potential, motivation, and need. As a part of EFE-Jordan’s standard programming, typically 100-120 youth are interviewed for one class of 20.

Following their training, beneficiaries are empowered with the precise skills needed to meet market demand, and are either placed in positions within the private sector or guided and mentored in launching their home-based businesses. This comprehensive cycle engages with beneficiaries throughout each step of their employment journey and ensures high placement rates by responding directly to the youths’ and the market’s needs.