McDonald's invests $2M in Chicago's workforce

McDonald's Corp. is starting a new initiative called Youth Opportunity, with a global goal to reduce barriers to employment for two-million young people by 2025 through pre-employment job readiness training, employment opportunities and workplace development programs.

To kick off this initiative, the company will distribute $1 million in grants to local community organizations in Chicago to deliver job readiness training for young people who have less access to opportunities. McDonald's will distribute a further $1 million in grant money to Skills for Chicagoland's Future to develop a new apprenticeship program with city colleges of Chicago. In Europe, McDonald's, including participating franchisees, has also pledged to offer 43,000 apprenticeships by 2025 as one of the workplace development programs people can access.

As part of this goal, McDonald's is also joining the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth, led by the International Labour Organization, to help accelerate global efforts to tackle the youth employment challenge.

"Around the world, too many young people are finding that, through no fault of their own, there are barriers to entry into the workplace. We believe this needs to change," said David Fairhurst, McDonald's executive vice president

"I want to commend McDonald's and their independent franchisees for demonstrating what it means to be a good corporate citizen and for investing in Chicago's next generation," said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. "Chicago is proud to partner with McDonald's to ramp up our workforce development efforts and help create more opportunities for young men and women across our great city."