Leaders Commit to Young Workers’ Success at Maryland Business Summit

On Dec. 9, more than 150 lead­ers rep­re­sent­ing busi­ness, edu­ca­tion, work­force devel­op­ment, gov­ern­ment and com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions attend­ed the Mary­land Busi­ness Sum­mit on Engag­ing the Future Work­force in Clarksville, Mary­land. Host­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and the Mary­land Governor’s Work­force Devel­op­ment Board (GWDB), the sum­mit explored strate­gies for empow­er­ing Mary­land busi­ness­es to con­nect young peo­ple with employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and bridge the gap between busi­ness tal­ent short­ages and youth unemployment.

Accord­ing to a 2024 Tal­ent Short­age Sur­vey by Man­pow­er­Group, 70% of U.S. employ­ers say they can­not find peo­ple with the skills they need — even for entry-lev­el jobs. Youth and young adult unem­ploy­ment is more than two times high­er than for the pop­u­la­tion over­all, accord­ing to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics.

Learn how Casey’s impact invests con­nect work and wealth

“Whether you’re look­ing to build on the strat­e­gy you already have or if you’re look­ing to try some­thing new, you under­stand that the young peo­ple in your com­mu­ni­ties are an asset,” said Gov. Wes Moore in video remarks. ​“And today you’ll hear about great ways you can lever­age this asset from appren­tice­ships and intern­ships to sum­mer job pro­grams. And through oppor­tu­ni­ties like these, we are build­ing a com­pet­i­tive econ­o­my that leaves no one behind.” Dur­ing the event, Carim Khouza­mi, chair of the GWDB and CEO of Bal­ti­more Gas and Elec­tric Com­pa­ny, called on employ­ers to work with local work­force and edu­ca­tion part­ners to devel­op and strength­en tal­ent pipelines for youth and young adults.

“One of the things that I want to leave every­one with is the impor­tance of us real­ly lean­ing in hard on this. Not only is it the right thing for the young peo­ple, but it’s the right thing for the com­pa­nies, and it’s a way for us to con­tribute to the Mary­land econ­o­my and also lift peo­ple up,” Khouza­mi said. ​“I know for a fact that every pos­si­ble job is offered here in Mary­land. It’s [a] ques­tion of ​‘are we con­nect­ing our young peo­ple to these opportunities?’”

Lisa Hamil­ton, Casey’s pres­i­dent and CEO, echoed these sen­ti­ments and under­scored the impor­tance of dis­man­tling untrue and often harm­ful nar­ra­tives around young work­ers. ​“I hope you’ll join me in telling a new sto­ry of what can be for our young peo­ple rather than just accept­ing what is,” said Hamil­ton. ​“Because if we only focus on the prob­lems, we can’t expect oth­er employ­ers and lead­ers to be part of the solu­tion. Let’s help turn the con­ver­sa­tion about young work­ers from fear and con­tempt, to poten­tial and strength. Today’s youth are hope­ful about their futures, and we should be too.”

The event fea­tured a keynote address from Lydia Logan, vice pres­i­dent of Glob­al Edu­ca­tion and Work­force Devel­op­ment at IBM, who shared the company’s skill-first approach to invest­ing in the future of work. Inter­ac­tive pan­el dis­cus­sions high­light­ed Mary­land busi­ness lead­ers, employ­ers and young employ­ees, cov­er­ing top­ics such as: 

• how busi­ness­es have suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed youth work­er-ori­ent­ed strate­gies, such as intern­ships, reg­is­tered appren­tice­ships and sum­mer employ­ment programs;
• the crit­i­cal role edu­ca­tion and work­force orga­ni­za­tion part­ner­ships play in the suc­cess of many busi­ness­es; and
• tes­ti­mo­ni­als from young work­ers on the ben­e­fits of qual­i­ty work experiences.

“We have to meet stu­dents where they are…It’s a dif­fer­ent world than what we grew up in aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, pro­fes­sion­al­ly and oth­er­wise. And I think that it’s impor­tant for us to rec­og­nize that — espe­cial­ly try­ing to cre­ate some of these oppor­tu­ni­ties com­ing out of the pan­dem­ic,” said Joe Hurst, eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment spe­cial­ist and work­force devel­op­ment man­ag­er for the Mont­gomery Coun­ty Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion. ​“I real­ly appre­ci­at­ed the pan­elists touch­ing on that, mak­ing sure that folks in the audi­ence under­stood that there are stu­dents [who] want to learn. There are stu­dents [who] want to work. We just have to make sure that we are cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that are con­ducive to their participation.”

Dis­cov­er how pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment empow­ers young workers