Pe­ter Christo­pher

RBC Fu­ture Launch, an ini­tia­tive fo­cused on equip­ping young peo­ple with op­por­tu­ni­ties and skills to suc­ceed in the ever-chang­ing work­force, was launched by RBC Roy­al Bank at the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness (ALJGSB) on Tues­day.

Speak­ing at the launch, RBC CEO Dar­ryl White said the job mar­ket is ever evolv­ing and many jobs young peo­ple do now were not es­tab­lished as jobs less than 20 years ago.

“Re­cent es­ti­mates sug­gest that six out of 10 chil­dren en­ter­ing pri­ma­ry school now will like­ly end up work­ing in com­plete­ly new job types that we can’t even imag­ine to­day,” he said

In many cas­es, peo­ple in jobs have seen the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and du­ties un­der their job de­scrip­tions ad­just­ed due to the shift in the mar­ket, he said.

“We need to be part­ners in en­abling youth to build skills and ex­pe­ri­ences that will pre­pare them for many dif­fer­ent jobs and roles across their life­time rather than com­mit them to sin­gle ca­reer path,” White added

Youth ac­tivist and for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Nikoli Ed­wards said it was im­por­tant for young peo­ple to fol­low their in­stincts when en­ter­ing the work­ing world. Young adults en­ter­ing the work­force of­ten com­pro­mise their ideals at the cost of their de­vel­op­ment, he said.

ALJGSB will part­ner in the ven­ture to en­sure that the pro­gramme meets the needs of stu­dents and young peo­ple.