Methods governments should use to prepare young people for working life

Currently, the Spanish labour market has important challenges. Young people have a lot of difficulties to start working in convenient jobs with proper conditions according to their education. Statistics indicate that young people find very hard to find opportunities. Consequently, these days most graduates are working with very low salaries to gain some experience to improve their CVs. It seems unacceptable there are not adequate jobs for this very well prepared generation of students: according to the experts, the best one in history in Spain.

Teachers and employers recommended several ways in order to ameliorate the situation. One of them is to encourage visits from companies to teach students and future workers what tasks they have, how their companies work and what is the best way to apply for a position. Another solution some business associations suggested was to introduce at school and university some subjects directly related to real jobs. That way, learning processes would focus on the realistic demands of the work market. To enhance subjects like English, French, computing tools like Word, Excel and practising interview techniques would be excellent proposals.

In conclusion, government should implement several measures to overcome this difficult situation. In my opinion, a better connection between companies and training centers would improve work conditions. Then, the Ministry of Education should adapt the official offer of studies to the current needs of the labour market. This is the strategy that I would recommend national and regional governments in Spain adopt.

Juan Antonio Corbalán Liarte

This article was written for the English course (C1) at the «Universidad Autónoma de Madrid«.