ALASKA: U.S. companies, including Chipotle Mexican Grill, FedEx, and Prudential, joined a Starbucks led coalition on, pledging to help create 100,000 jobs for unemployed youth by the end of 2018.
They join 17 other big U.S. companies that launched the 100,000 Opportunities Initiative last month, an effort that seeks to jump start the future of some of the 5.5 million Americans, ages 16 to 24, who are neither in school nor employed. Demographers and economists refer to the group as “disconnected youth.”Other companies that announced Tuesday they signed on include Domino’s, Hyatt, Mars, Nordstrom, Pizza Hut, Red Robin, Sweet green and T Mobile.
The push to take on the yawning problem of youth unemployment is spearheaded by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who pledged earlier this year to hire 10,000 such youth by the end of 2018. Starbucks officials say they did not need to recruit to attract the dozen new companies that joined the initiative.