Citi Foundation is putting $25M toward tackling young adults' unemployment and AI labor disruptions

NEW YORK (AP) — Young jobseekers, challenged by a rapidly changing labor market, are having a tough time.

The U.S. unemployment rate for 22- to 27-year-old degree holders is the highest in a dozen years outside of the pandemic. Companies are reluctant to add staff amid so much economic uncertainty. The hiring slump is especially hitting professions such as information technology that employ more college graduates, creating nightmarish job hunts for the increasingly smaller number who do complete college. Not to mention fears that artificial intelligence will replace entry-level roles.

So, Citi Foundation identified youth employability as the theme for its $25 million Global Innovation Challenge this year. The banking group's philanthropic arm is donating a half million dollars to each of 50 groups worldwide that provide digital literacy skills, technical training and career guidance for low-income youth.

“What we want to do is make sure young people are as prepared as possible to find employment in a world that’s moving really quickly,” said Ed Skyler, Citi Head of Enterprise Services and Public Affairs.

Employer feedback suggested to Citi Foundation that early career applicants lacked the technical skills necessary for roles many had long prepared to fill, highlighting the need for continued vocational training and the importance of soft skills.

Skyler pointed to the World Economic Forum’s recent survey of more than 1,000 companies that together employ millions of people. Skills gaps were considered the biggest barrier to business transformation over the next five years. Two-thirds of respondents reported planning to hire people with specific AI skills and 40% of them anticipated eliminating jobs AI could complete.

Some grantees are responding by teaching people how to prompt AI chatbots to do work that can be automated. But Skyler emphasized it was equally important they fund efforts to impart qualities AI lacks such as teamwork, empathy, judgment and communication.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all effort where we think every young person needs to be able to code or interface with AI," Skyler said. “What is consistent throughout the programs is we want to develop the soft skills.”

Among the recipients is NPower, a national nonprofit that seeks to improve economic opportunity in underinvested communities by making digital careers more accessible. Most of their students are young adults between the ages of 18 and 26.

NPower Chief Innovation Officer Robert Vaughn said Citi Foundation's grant will at least double the spaces available in a program for “green students” with no tech background and oftentimes no college degree.

Considering the tech industry's ever-changing requirements for skills and certifications, he said, applicants need to demonstrate wide-ranging capabilities both in cloud computing and artificial intelligence as well as project management and emotional intelligence.

As some entry-level roles get automated and outsourced, Vaughn said companies aren’t necessarily looking for college degrees and specialized skillsets, but AI comfortability and general competency.

“It is more now about being able to be more than just an isolated, siloed technical person," he said. “You have to actually be a customer service person.”

Per Scholas, a no-cost technology training nonprofit, is another one of the grantees announced Tuesday. Caitlyn Brazill, its president, said the funds will help develop careers for about 600 young adults across Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Chicago and the greater Washington, D.C area.

To keep their classes relevant, she spends a lot of time strategizing with small businesses and huge enterprises alike. Citi Foundation's focus on youth employability is especially important, she said, because she hears often that AI's productivity gains have forced companies to rethink entry-level roles.

Dwindling early career opportunities have forced workforce development nonprofits like hers to provide enough hands-on training to secure jobs that previously would have required much more experience.

“But if there’s no bottom rung on the ladder, it’s really hard to leap up, right?” Brazill said.

She warned that failing to develop new career pathways could hurt the economy in the long run by blocking young people from high growth careers.

Brookings Institution senior fellow Martha Ross said the fund was certainly right to focus on technology’s disruption of the labor market. But she said the scale of that disruption requires a response that is “too big for philanthropy" alone.

“We did not handle previous displacements due to automation very well,” Ross said. “We left a lot of people behind. And we now have to decide if we’re going to replicate that or not.”

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

Kendra Parlock, Vice President of Partnership Development at NPower, talks to an NPower alumna during an event at World Wide Technology, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Caitlyn Brazill, President of Per Scholas, speaks to a Per Scholas class at the training center's Brooklyn Campus, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Students attend a Per Scholas class at the training center's Brooklyn campus, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Kendra Parlock, Vice President of Partnership Development at NPower, attends an NPower alumni event at World Wide Technology, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Students attend a cyber security training class at Per Scholas' Brooklyn campus, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Kendra Parlock, Vice President of Partnership Development at NPower, talks to an NPower alumna during an event at World Wide Technology, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Caitlyn Brazill, President of Per Scholas, speaks to a Per Scholas class at the training center's Brooklyn Campus, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Kendra Parlock, Vice President of Partnership Development at NPower, and Robert Vaughn, Chief Innovation Officer, pose for a portrait at an NPower alumni event at World Wide Technology, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Robert Vaughn, Chief Innovation Officer of NPower, poses for a portrait at an alumni event at World Wide Technology, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Vote counting was underway Friday in Uganda’s tense presidential election, which was held a day earlier amid an internet shutdown, voting delays and complaints by an opposition leader who said some of his polling agents had been detained by the authorities.

Opposition leader Bobi Wine said Thursday he was unable to leave his house and that his polling agents in rural areas were abducted before voting started, undermining his efforts to prevent electoral offenses such as ballot stuffing.

Wine is hoping to end President Yoweri Museveni's four-decade rule in an election during which the military was deployed and heavy security was posted outside his house near Kampala, the Ugandan capital, after the vote.

The musician-turned-politician wrote on X on Thursday that a senior party official in charge of the western region had been arrested, adding there was “massive ballot stuffing everywhere.”

Rural Uganda, especially the western part of the country, is a ruling-party stronghold, and the opposition would be disadvantaged by not having polling agents present during vote counting.

To try to improve his chances of winning, Wine had urged his supporters to “protect the vote” by having witnesses document alleged offenses at polling stations, in addition to deploying official polling agents.

Wine faced similar setbacks when he first ran for president five years ago. Museveni took 58% of the vote, while Wine got 35%, according to official results. Wine said at the time that the election had been rigged in favor of Museveni, who has spoken disparagingly of his rival.

Museveni, after voting on Thursday, said the opposition had infiltrated the 2021 election and defended the use of biometric machines as a way of securing the vote in this election.

Museveni has served the third-longest tenure of any African leader and is seeking to extend his rule into a fifth decade. The aging president’s authority has become increasingly dependent on the military, which is led by his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

Uganda has not witnessed a peaceful transfer of presidential power since independence from British colonial rule six decades ago.

Voters line up to cast their ballots at a polling station, during the presidential election, in the capital, Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Election officials count ballots after the polls closed for the presidential election at a polling station in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

An election official holds up unmarked ballots during the vote count after polls closed for the presidential election, at a polling center in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A political representative speaks as he works to observe and verify the counting of ballots after polls closed in the presidential election at a polling station in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A supporter of leading opposition candidate Bobi Wine cheers while watching election officials count ballots, after polls closed at a polling station in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)