Young people should have access to employment opportunities and affordable, accessible, and youth-friendly services that help them enter the labour market.

What is the situation?      

Young people living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods:

  • Can experience a range of challenges in moving from education to work, including a lack of skills, qualifications and low self-confidence. 
  • Can experience from various forms of discrimination in moving from education to work.
  • Are often isolated from centres of employment.
  • Often experience precarious working conditions.

 


 

Transcript:
"We work in a social district in Montpellier, so they have some trouble accessing the social rights, in fact, because some of them stop schools very early and after its very difficult for them to find another way to come back to school. Some are older and have a lot of trouble to find job because of the discrimination way. Sometimes the fact that to live in this district can be for the people, a solution for them not taking them in the work, so it is some kind of problem. We have some drug traffic too, but it is very slow at this time, but we have a lot of good people too and that is the main important thing."


What should public authorities do?

  • Ensure that apprenticeships and vocational education and training programmes are inclusive, linked to employment opportunities, and include a clear career path.
  • Ensure that apprentices are properly paid so that this route into the labour market is attractive to young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This should be set out in legislation.
  • Legislate and work with employers to ensure that internships are a secure and legal form of employment that can result in a job.
  • Improve existing, and develop new approaches to providing information and career guidance for young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods. These approaches should take account of the barriers they experience in accessing vocational education and training, apprenticeships and employment.
  • Provide access to on-the-job work experience in both the public and private sectors, including through partnerships between employers and trade union organisations.
  • Develop work experience programmes that are available for young people who are finding it difficult to access employment.  All relevant local and national bodies, including local authorities, educational institutions, local business and trade unions organisations should be involved in developing and providing work experience programmes.
  • Consider the introduction of a ‘youth guarantee’, which would make sure that no young person is without access to education, training or employment for more than four months
  • Recognise all relevant activities, including non-formal education and community work, as work experience.  This will require an exchange of good practice and co-operation between education and training providers, employers, employer’s associations, and youth organisations.
  • Provide public access to information and communications technologies (ICT) through existing public services, such as youth centres, libraries, media centres and other information and counselling centres.
  • Include modules on career guidance for young job seekers in public and community youth work programmes. These should include workshops on job searching, CV writing and interview techniques,
  • Encourage entrepreneurship and social enterprises by establishing funding schemes, such as micro-finance and co-operative finance programmes.
  • Encourage entrepreneurship and social enterprises by establishing funding schemes, such as micro-finance and co-operative finance programmes.
  • Provide government incentives through the taxation system and other financial support to employers to provide quality employment for young people.
  • Provide affordable public child-care for young parents during working hours, so that they can take up employment.
  • Provide incentives that encourage employers to offer working conditions that consider the needs of young parents and allow them to have a well-balanced work and family life. This could include providing parental leave (including paternal leave), flexible working arrangements and, where possible, child-care facilities.
  • Consider the specific challenges faced by young people entering the labour market when developing employment policies and strategies.

Examples from the Enter! Project

Muirhouse Youth Development Group, an organisation based in Scotland ran a project called ‘My future, social enterprise for young people in youth work’. The project worked with young people who had dropped out of school, young offenders and young migrants. 37% of the entire population of Muirhouse is income deprived and young people in the area are three times as likely to be unemployed as the city average. Through participation in the project the young people learned about their social rights in the areas of education, employment, participation and sport and leisure. As a result of the project, the young people increased their awareness of their rights, and gained the skills and confidence to access employment or engage in volunteering.

In Azerbaijan Prison Watch Public Association worked with over 300 young people who were serving sentences in ten prisons across the country, and supported them to prepare for life outside of detention. The project, ‘Preparation courses for life after prison’ focussed on social rights in the fields of education, employment and legal and social protection. Through two-day training sessions, the participants were prepared to search for employment, prepare CVs and were issued with information booklets that supported them in their transition into life outside of prison.  These opportunities had not previously been made available to young people detained in Azerbaijan’s prison. As a result of the project, it was recognised that changes were needed to the country’s prison system and a recommendation was developed to call for the introduction of social workers and priests into prisons.