President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador met today with the influential Business Coordinating Council (CCE) and won its support for a new apprenticeship program.

López has proposed paid apprenticeships for young people called “Youths building the future.”

The program is intended to guarantee access to education and employment opportunities. “[Youths] will be hired as apprentices and will be working for businesses . . . and will be paid a salary,” said López.

The program is to be coordinated with business owners who will assume the role of mentors and be in charge of the youths’ training.

“Through a simple mechanism, the government will transfer funds to cover the youths’ salaries,” explained the president-elect.

López has estimated that some 110 billion pesos (US $5.7 billion) is needed to guarantee access to public or private universities, as well as to pay for the apprenticeship program.

Today, CCE president Juan Pablo Castañón agreed with the plan, which both parties will sign once election authorities officially ratify the election results.

A 2016 study by the World Bank identified youths who neither studied nor worked (ninis, in Spanish, for ni estudian, ni trabajan) as a growing problem in Mexico, particularly among young men. It is a problem throughout Latin America and youths aged 19 to 24 are those who are most affected.

They leave school to go to work but find few job opportunities. So they are recruited by organized crime, said the report, entitled Ninis in Latin America: 20 Million Youths Searching for Opportunities.

Source: Milenio (sp)