Most workforce programs celebrate on graduation day. A learner completes their training, a photo gets taken, a report gets filed. Mission accomplished.

But what happens six months later? A year later? Five years later?

That’s where the real story lives, and most funders never get to read it. 

Many programs stop tracking the moment a graduate walks away with certification in hand. No follow-up. No long-term data. No way to know if the training actually changed a life, or just checked a box.

Generation tracks differently. 

Our 2025 Global Alumni Survey followed 4,691 graduates across 15 countries, people who completed our program between two and five years ago. The findings don’t just confirm that our graduates are employed. They show that our graduates are thriving, and that the outcomes compound over time.

What Durability Actually Looks Like

Here’s what the data shows.

76% of Generation graduates are employed two to five years after graduation, and that rate holds stable across every economy type we operate in, from Kenya and India to the UK and Australia. Employment doesn’t spike at six months and collapse. It holds.

But employment alone isn’t the metric that matters. Quality does.

• 83% of employed graduates work in high-quality jobs, defined by full-time hours, stable contracts, living wages, a sense of purpose, and a sense of belonging at work. This framework draws from The Good Jobs Institute.
• 71% have advanced beyond entry-level roles by year five. They’re not just holding jobs. They’re building careers.
• 73% earn above a living wage. In upper-middle income countries, that number climbs to 85%.

Ask yourself this: how many programs in your current portfolio can show you those numbers at year five?

The ROI That Compounds

Funders understand compounding returns. A dollar invested today that generates $7 over five years is a fundamentally different asset than a dollar that generates $1.

Generation’s programs deliver a 3 to 7x return over five years compared with what similar people in the same country earn without the program. We also see strong gains when we compare graduates’ earnings to where they started before Generation. In Mexico, graduates earn 22.4x more income over five years than their pre-program baseline. In the UK, that figure is 10.9x. In India, it is 9.5x.

These aren’t projections. They’re calculated from observed employment rates, wages, and program costs, using country-level comparison data and graduate baseline data.

And the returns don’t stop with the graduate.

80% of alumni support their households financially in one or more ways after graduating. They contribute to family expenses (49%), pay down debts (25%), and build savings (26%). They pay for better housing (31%) and better healthcare (21%). In households with children, which describes 53% of our graduates, 40% have directly paid for better education for their kids.

A job transforms one life. A durable career transforms a household. And a transformed household changes what’s possible for the next generation.

Related to this topic:
The Feedback Loops Funders Are Missing

The Intergenerational Case

Before joining Generation, 26% of our graduates held college degrees. Two to five years after graduating, 49% do, a 23-percentage-point increase in tertiary educational attainment. Graduates use earnings to fund their own continued education. That matters because research shows that parents’ education is a strong predictor of children’s educational outcomes and expectations. 

Generation isn’t just placing people in jobs. The model creates an upward spiral: higher wages fund more education, more education unlocks higher wages, and the next generation starts from a higher floor.

That’s what systems change looks like in the data.

Transparency and Action

Funders don’t want promises. They want proof, and they want the full picture.

Here’s what the data shows: the first two years after graduation are the most fragile part of their journey. About 20% of alumni experience breaks in employment during that period, a pattern driven mostly by lower-middle-income countries. Those breaks matter. Alumni who face them are less likely to be earning above a living wage two to five years later than alumni who stay continuously employed.

Generation tracks this and responds to it, with extended placement support, AI upskilling modules, career coaching, and employer networking events designed specifically for the two-year vulnerability window.

That’s the difference between a program that measures outcomes and a partner that acts on them.

Our annual survey carries a 48% average response rate across 15 countries, up 7 percentage points from 2024. That’s a genuine signal of alumni engagement with an organization they trust.

Generation has collected 57+ million data points across all program stages. We work with 24,000+ employers, 150+ funders, and operate across 40+ professions in 17 countries. Our graduates have earned more than $2.4 billion in wages since 2015.

Explore our full impact data →

The Window Is Now

The workforce transition is accelerating. AI is reshaping entry-level roles. Automation is displacing workers faster than traditional systems can retrain them. The organizations that fund durable solutions today will shape the labor market for the next decade.

Durability is the only metric that proves a program actually works, not just at the finish line, but five years down the road, when a graduate is managing a team, paying for a child’s school fees, and building savings for the first time in their family’s history.

Generation has the track record, the data infrastructure, and the global reach to deliver that proof, at scale, across industries, and across income levels.