Youth employability and the Young Apprentice Program in Brazil

The Young Apprentice Program, facilitated by organizations such as the Centro de Integração Empresa Escola do Paraná (CIEE/PR), provides a pathway for adolescents aged 14 to 18 to enter the workforce while maintaining their education. In Brazil, the number of registered apprentices exceeded 664,000 in 2026, with Paraná leading the Southern Region in placing teenagers in the labor market.

The program is designed to balance professional development with academic requirements. Under the Apprenticeship Law, participants must maintain school attendance if they have not completed high school, and workdays are limited to a maximum of six hours daily or 30 hours weekly to ensure studies are not compromised. Benefits include formal employment registration, salary, and transportation vouchers.

Separately, research into the employability of recent engineering graduates highlights the challenges young professionals face due to fluctuating unemployment rates. A study of 9,753 young individuals analyzed how variables such as behavioral profiles, logic levels, foreign language proficiency, and extracurricular experiences influence selection processes as graduates seek to align with organizational work styles.