TORONTO — McDonald’s Corporation announced a new initiative yesterday to reduce employment barriers for two million youth around the world by 2025.
Around the globe, 21.8 per cent of the world’s youth are not in employment or education. As a major employer of young people, McDonald’s aims to bridge the opportunity gap. Through the initiative — called Youth Opportunity — McDonald’s will offer a new pre-employment job-readiness and soft-skills training program designed to help develop the competencies employers are looking for in entry-level employees.
McDonald’s will be piloting the Youth-Opportunity initiative in Chicago before rolling it out to participating global markets starting in 2019.
The company also offers training-and-development programs such as Hamburger University, which has helped more than 360,000 students gain leadership positions in the restaurant industry.
“We are tremendously proud to be one of the largest employers of young people in [Canada], with over 70 per cent of the workforce being people who are seeking their first or second job,” says Stephanie Hardman, chief People officer, McDonald’s Canada. “McDonald’s Canada is proud to partner with 26 different colleges and universities across the country to offer educational opportunities to restaurant managers interested in pursuing post-secondary education in business programs.”
