employment in the formal sector

AYB-SD researches the aggregate private sector’s employment needs, and then goes through researching each and every company’s and factory’s specific needs. These specific employment needs are channeled from the Employment Office of AYB-SD to the training programs of AYB-SD to tailor special training curricula. AYB-SD has got specialized and vocational programs to make sure it satisfies all needs of companies and factories. Specialized trainings include sales, admin, secretary work, housekeeping, driving…etc, which all include soft and life skills integrated in the trainings. Vocational trainings include hand-made products, sewing, and leather-made products. Marginalized youth and women with secondary or university education are qualified for all factories’ positions, and for specific companies’ positions starting from drivers and housekeepers and moving up to sales, admin, and secretary jobs. However, they might be qualified, but they are not accepted for any employment opportunity except after formal training. Accordingly, AYB-SD is training the marginalized on jobs that include package of skills according to the company/factory demands. For example, company X demands a number of marginalized youth to work in Sales. AYB-SD searches for marginalized youth and train them on sales as a job and its skills (communication, negotiation…etc). If the company requires computer or English training, these are also integrated into the training.

Each company/factory approves the training curricula, and then AYB-SD searches for marginalized youth and women from different governorates to train on the specific jobs and skills. AYB-SD does soft screening for applicants after making sure of the seriousness to join the program. The pre-employment training takes an intensive one-month, which includes trainings on general job knowledge and skills. The company/factory joins forces with AYB-SD to give parts of the trainings to create more ownership and participation from their side. This also changes the stereotypes of companies/factories about the poor, because they see themselves how marginalized youth and women change throughout the process.

After the training, AYB-SD carries out screening interviews for the participants and selects the best of them to be sent to the company/factory based on their criteria. Then, the company/factory selects the best candidates out of the pool sent to them to be immediately hired. Youth and women who were not selected in any of the interviews are channeled to other companies/factories with the matching criteria.

The process does not stop here, because AYB-SD aims at ensuring that the person is able to remain in the job. This is why AYB-SD does job coaching for the first three months of employment, which is, to make sure that the person renews the contract for at least one year. Job coaching includes more specific trainings for the job required, practical workshops, and others. This period also allows AYB-SD to know the level of satisfaction of the company/factory from the employment service. After the three months are over, AYB-SD measures the impact on the marginalized youth and women. Measuring impact includes how gaining an employment opportunity affected family expenditure (education of children, health expenditure, food, and alike) as well as personal expenditure (ability to marry, wear better clothes, consumption level, and alike). AYB-SD compares the level of poverty before and after employment, as well as the change in attitudes of youth and women after employment. The final social impact is measured after one year of employment.

This employment model is sustainable because AYB-SD is selling this model as a service to companies and factories. The private sector pays to get a high quality service, which is not offered in Egypt except from AYB-SD.