‘Young people have advantages over older workers – they can come into jobs as digital natives’

“The spirit of an apprenticeship – training and learning while on the job – makes complete sense.”

Blair, who is the son of former Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, also touched upon the unprecedented level of competition in the job market for young people.

“The challenge at the moment is that there’s between 150 and 200 very qualified applicants for every single apprenticeship role – a real mismatch,” he said.

In the UK right now, more than a million young people aged between 16 and 24 are NEETs, meaning that they are not in education, employment, or training.

“Younger workers have advantages though,” he offered, “as they can come into jobs as digital natives.”

Blair was speaking alongside Sir Ronald Cohen, an investor and philanthropist, a pioneer of venture capital in this country, as well as in the nascent domain of social investment.

Much of what Cohen discussed centred on AI, which, he said, was “going to transform every business sector”.

“There’s a world of new opportunities opening up,” he said, likening the emergence of AI to the microchip revolution.

“The ability today to look at every sector and say: ‘How is that sector going to change with AI?’ is a very important ability. Young people will do that more easily than older people.”

He also referenced impact investment, which he described as the notion that “you can actually make a profit and deliver measurable improvement in lives and the state of the planet at the same time”.

“Venture capital funds those who want to make money, but we hadn’t found a way to fund people who want to change the world,” he continued.

“The reason we haven’t [in the UK] done better is that we’ve only relied on government spending and philanthropy. We hadn’t brought investment into play.

“The convergence of AI and impact investment is where the biggest companies are going to be created now.”

Left to right: Ronel Lehmann, Euan Blair, Sir Ronald Cohen, Lord Daniel Finkelstein (photo: Justin Grainge)[Missing Credit]

The pair were being interviewed by Lord Daniel Finkelstein OBE, a celebrated journalist and politician currently serving as associate editor and political columnist at the Times, who prompted them with thought-provoking questions throughout.

The organisation ORT was founded in St Petersburg in 1880 to provide employable skills for Russia’s impoverished Jews.

In the nearly 150 years since, it has become a global education network driven by Jewish values, and today, its pedagogy and training programmes reach over 350,000 people in more than 40 countries each year.

As one of its domestic branches, ORT UK focuses on secondary school students and supports them to make informed decisions about careers. This includes its ORT JUMP mentoring scheme, which pairs year 12 students with industry professionals, as well as a number of other employability skills programmes.

Elisha Lobatto, from Hasmonean School, who was at the breakfast, said his ORT Jump mentor “gave me a deeper understanding of the commercial property world and how it works”.

He sat in on company meetings, was given invaluable advice by his mentor, and networked with other professionals within the company. After his four sessions were up, the company offered him work experience.

Avi Denton, who goes to Brampton College, said his property developer mentor had been “really insightful” and he now had a better idea of what he needed to do to achieve his goals.

Annette Kurer, chair of ORT UK, said: “No young person’s future should be limited by their circumstances.

“They lack opportunity, not ability. They lack access to professional networks and the confidence that success is within their reach.

“Investing in young people is not simply an act of generosity – it’s an investment in the future strength of our workforce economy society.”

Left to right: Jude Jackson, Ronel Lehmann, Euan Blair, Sir Ronald Cohen, Lord Daniel Finkelstein, Annette Kurer (photo: Justin Grainge)[Missing Credit]

Every year, more than 500 businesspeople volunteer their time to the programme, which launched in 2009 and now engages more than 1,500 young people across 14 schools.

“Demand continues to grow” for the programme, according to Kurer, who added that nowadays, one in five of their current mentors was once a mentee.

Among the other notable attendees at the breakfast were Sir Jeremy Hunt, ex-chancellor and current MP for Godalming and Ash and Michael Manielli, former Lord Mayor of the City of London.

The breakfast was chaired by Ronel Lehmann, who is also the founder and CEO of Finito, a coaching and mentoring business dedicated to helping first-time job hunters find meaningful careers.

He implored guests to either start or continue to mentor with their programme. “We all have a duty of care to support and inspire the next generation,” he said.

To find out more about ORT JUMP, click here.