Ikea to create 95,000 jobs by 2025 with social businesses
Ikea is scaling up social entrepreneurship business with the ambition to reach 95,000 jobs by 2025. It has been collaborating with social businesses since 2012, and currently, the initiative is generating work for more than 30,000 people. Handcrafted collections and products produced in collaborations with social businesses are sold in global Ikea stores.
For several years, Ikea has been working with social entrepreneurs to create a better everyday life through long-term job opportunities and livelihood for people who need it the most. Social businesses produce unique handcrafted products in order to create financial independence and life-changing opportunities for marginalized groups and women in vulnerable communities. The ability to earn an income also has a direct and positive effect on nearly 150,000 family members of these artisans today, according to Ikea.
Ikea will extend the business together with existing partners, supporting with knowledge and expertise around design, production, and working environment. In addition to this, new scalable partners will be identified as social business partners to Ikea and create positive change for more people. As a result, more jobs will be created, and Ikea will increase the offering of high quality, handmade and unique design enabled through craft traditional techniques products in the stores worldwide, Ikea said.
“I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished, but I know that we can do much more. We have built strong business relationship with our partners for many years, and now we are happy to join hands with a few additional highly established social businesses, and together we will be scaling up the social entrepreneur business,” Vaishali Misra, business leader, Ikea social entrepreneurs’ initiative, said in a press release by the company.
“It’s a working relationship on inspiration, knowledge sharing, and mutual exchange of competencies. The social entrepreneurs ensure a diverse and unique product offer. On its part, Ikea uses its network to supply the enterprises with affordable, high-quality raw material, extending their infrastructure to the social enterprises. By doing this on a high scale, we could also inspire other retailers to do the same,” Misra added.
