Post on 09-Jul-2020
transcript
International approaches to tackling long-term
unemployment amongst vulnerable groups
Dr Andrew Dean
Marchmont Observatory
University of Exeter
a.dean@exeter.ac.uk
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
Marchmont Observatory
Labour Market Observatory Specialist Research centre in Skills and Employment policy and practice Supporting the exchange of ideas and good practice Regional and local specialisms LEP Support (Solent, Dorset etc) History of EU Project working (Horizon 2020/FP7, LLP/Erasmus+, Progress etc) Action-based research
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
SUCCESSFUL METHODS FOR GETTING THE
LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED INTO WORK:
A SHORT OVERVIEW
Emma Clarence (Policy Analyst) and Stina Heikkilä (Intern)
OECD LEED Trento Centre for Local Development
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
Australia
How Parramatta City Council in Australia are using social procurement to generate enhanced social
outcomes for its disadvantaged communities.
Canada
The BladeRunners Program helps youth (ages 15-30) with multiple barriers to employment, to build careers in
construction and other industries throughout the province of British Columbia (BC), Canada.
Belgium
Information on two projects in Antwerp and Alost in Belgium which focused on ‘experimental trajectories’
towards work for persons living in poverty.
Italy
Work integration is the main mission of ESEDRA which works in the energy and environmental sectors. Its
development has been driven by a desire to give work opportunities to disadvantaged people.
France
Ardelaine is a co-operative whose primary mission is sustainable local development by promoting respect for
the environment throughout the supply chain.
Belgium
Social flexibility and attention to local needs as the levers for large-scale sustainable job creation by the
Flemish organisation ‘vzw IN-Z’.
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
Understand the Geography and Context
All local interventions will have their own unusual/unique characteristics such as
geography, predominant sectors, emerging opportunities, partners, vulnerable
groups or financing and this should to be recognised from the outset.
Do not assume a project can simply be replicated in another area.
A number of projects (including from the UK) were very rooted within their
communities and had an advanced understanding of local conditions and labour
market.
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Recognise Multiple Barriers
Whilst insufficient or a lack of recent skills constitute central barriers in today’s
labour markets, the situation is often made worse by the complexity of the barriers
people face.
In Belgium the Flemish public employment service’s ‘Back at Work’ programme
aims to help former prisoners to re-enter the job market. In this programme,
counsellors support detainees through labour market orientation, as well as
vocational and ‘soft’ skills training. To overcome the typical ‘black spots’ on
prisoners’ CVs, professional competences acquired in prison are certified.
Overcoming employers’ reluctance to hire former prisoners is a crucial aspect of
the programme. In the city of Hasselt, Back at Work developed a network
involving employers, the public sector and well as social actors who contributed to
improving communication around the issue. A brochure of tips and tricks for hiring
former prisoners, which reflected a wide-range of views, also helped to improve
the employment prospects of this hard-to-place group.
The Social Economy and Social Value
The social economy, organisations that operate in the space between the state
and the market, including co-operatives, associations, mutual, foundations and
social enterprises, is an important actor in supporting the long-term unemployed
into work (Noya and Clarence, 2007).
In Australia:
1. The social enterprise, Magic Green Clean, works with new refugees and
long-term unemployed immigrants helping them to develop both hard and
soft skills before finding employment in the open labour market. Improved
health and well-being and a cost benefit analysis demonstrate that, in the
long-term, there were significant gains in savings from unemployment
benefits, increased tax revenue and the economic value of individual
expenditure (Quinn, 2011).
2. Parramatta City Council use extensive Social Procurement.
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
Targeting disadvantaged areas
Another approach to reaching vulnerable groups in the labour market is area-
based initiatives, where particularly distressed areas, or ‘pockets of
deprivation’, with high concentrations of disadvantaged people, are targeted.
One example of such a strategic intervention is provided by Gloucester Works
in the UK. One key feature of success for Gloucester Works was the provision
of seamless and individualised support during the whole ‘client journey’ from
the development of individual action plans for skills development, to vacancy
matching and in-work support, proved to be successful practice to secure
sustained employment.
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Broad-based partnerships
Partnerships can play a critical role in overcoming labour market barriers at the
local level by connecting policies and building links between local actors, as
well as between various government actors, thereby enhancing both the
effectiveness and efficiency of local employment service delivery.
An example from the Lower Rio Grande Valley in lower Texas, USA, shows
how a strategic partnership can connect regional economic development to
employment and skills for the benefit of local populations. The initiative was led
by the McAllen Economic Development Corporation and the Greater McAllen
Alliance recruitment entity, which together with local actors formulated a
strongly skill-based vision for the region to become a ‘rapid response
manufacturing centre’. The regional workforce development board, Workforce
Solutions, together with South Texas College and other educational institutions,
ensured that training was provided in order to create a workforce that matched
the new economic strategy. Overall, more than 500 employers and almost 100,
000 jobs were attracted to the region, lowering unemployment rates in McAllen
by more than half since the early 1990s (Froy and Giguère, 2010).
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
Local flexibility
To enable local actors to respond to the specific labour market barriers found in
their areas, the need for flexibility for local employment services in delivering
training and employment programmes has been repeatedly stressed in the
literature (Giguère and Froy, 2009; Froy et al., 2011).
Denmark provides an example of the value of local flexibility. In 2007 state
employment agencies were abolished and all administrative matters connected
to active labour market policies were transferred to local authorities (Crowley et
al., 2013). Four years after the reform, 79% municipal job centre managers
identified that there were no local labour market priorities which they felt unable
to address.
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
Targeting disadvantaged youth
Targeting services at young people means that individualised responses can be
developed which both address the specific barriers young people confront on the
labour market and meet their specific needs. Within the ‘youth’ category, further
targeting may be undertaken, such as spatially (community or neighbourhood), or at
specific subgroups, such as sex or ethnic minority groupings, or disadvantaged
youth.
BladeRunners in British Columbia (Canada) is an effective example of targeted
support. This government-sponsored programme helps disadvantaged young
people (aged 15-30) to overcome multiple barriers to employment and to build
careers in construction and other industries. A three-week training course, including
both soft and hard skills, and direct job placements (the programme has a 77%
placement rate) is provided. Moreover, BladeRunners offers extensive individual
support services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for an indeterminate period of
time after placement.
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
Seek sustainability and added value
The aligning of different strands of activity such as regeneration, mainstream
funding, charitable donation and project funding can be complicated, but it can
also produce added-value through real benefits in scale. Drawing down
mainstream funding should accentuate sustainability.
The ESEDRA Co-operative in Italy are examples of how voluntary and
community level organisations can successfully access mainstream funding.
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
Person-centred
Long-term unemployed adults often have significant, and different, barriers to
successful engagement within the labour market. Identifying individual needs and
developing a personalised intervention will enhance both the likelihood of success
and the experience of the individual receiving support. In some cases, with
projects seeking to engage over the longer term with particularly excluded
individuals, the jobseekers are not treated as clients or customers but as partners
within the project.
BladeRunners recognised the importance of the enthusiastic co-ordinators, who
grew in their jobs during the process and really built up a relation of trust and
confidence with the jobseekers. Similarly, the personalised mentoring roles in the
Antwerp and Alost examples were critical to the project’s success.
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
SKILLS
In the context of a knowledge-based economy, skills are the global currency of
the 21st century and therefore ensuring that people have the necessary skills for
a rapidly evolving labour market is of the utmost importance (OECD 2012c).
• Skills mismatch
• No just Supply – Drive up demand
• Target the lower-skilled
In China, vocational training for rural migrant workers is particularly focussed on
the demand for skills created by local industrial restructuring, technological
upgrading and new, state-sponsored construction projects.
Chile has had successful experiences of skills upgrading in its fruit and vegetable
industries. The Labour Skills Certification Programme awards certificates that
recognise workers’ competencies regardless of how they were achieved (APEL).
Moreover, training courses are made available to workers whose informal skills
are not sufficient in order to allow them to obtain certification.
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SKILLS (contd…) and TRANSITIONS
Vocational Education and Training
The need to be ‘employable’ and the need for a ‘highly skilled workforce’ are
not a cure-all. We need to drive the demand for skills not just the supply.
One key determinant of success for the German VET system is the high
engagement of both employers, including small and medium sized enterprises,
and other social partners, such as trade unions and chambers of commerce,
not only in providing actual placements, but also in helping to create relevant
curricula that address skills needs.
Facilitating the transition from school to work
In parts of the USA, industries, education systems and employment services
have collaborated to map out ‘industry clusters’ and outline associated skill
requirements and ‘career pathways’ for those entering, and those in, the labour
market.
LMI in the US is way ahead of UK in terms of enabling individuals to trace
career paths and earnings to geographies. LMI for All is a step towards tackling
this.
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
Changing public sector roles and finance mechanisms
In many countries, the public sector has a long and distinguished history of
financing and managing projects and programmes with excluded groups and
individuals. In a world of shrinking financial capacity for delivering such
programmes, the public sector needs to embrace a new role as an enabler of
social innovation. This could involve a shift to a more conscious and systematic
approach to public sector working and a shift from running tasks and projects
to orchestrating the processes of co-creation within communities and in
partnership with community-level partners: seeking not to do things ‘for’ people,
but instead, to do them ‘with’ people.
Peter Ramsden’s OECD LEED report highlights these changes and the role
that innovative finance might need to play. Whether linking internal positive
training and recruitment practices to the procurement process, or taking
advantage of the emergence of new financing techniques such as crowd-
funding and microfinance, innovative financing will play an ever more important
role in funding community level programmes.
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Evaluation and dissemination
Ensuring lessons are captured through evaluation and/or active dissemination
and mainstreaming is crucial to ensuring new projects no longer need to ‘re-
invent the wheel’ and should be a step towards sustainability.
Effective evaluation need not be costly. It should be built into new programmes
from their commencement and should seek to inform both the development of
the programme, and others about its successful and transferable lessons.
Even universities need money….
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Other Generic Lessons
• Cross-cutting approaches
As the broad range of barriers to employment highlight, the factors which
contribute to long-term unemployment are complex and multi-faceted. Given
this, it is crucial that labour market interventions take into account how actions
in one area can have an impact, positive or negative, on other areas of activity.
• Avoid departments working in silos
Long-term unemployment is a policing, health, social services, economic,
social and personal issue. Funding and support shouldn’t just be ‘skills’ etc…
In Norway, social workers often work in the same centres that in the UK would
be largely staffed by youth workers only.
• Make training work-relevant
• Don’t forget lifelong learning
http://www.marchmont.ac.uk
Remember the Personal…
The OECD continues to argue, rightly, that proper co-ordination of regional and local labour
markets is needed to find solutions to some of their most important deficiencies. Long-term
unemployment may be around for some time to come, but the work demonstrates that we
can, already, design effective programmes to mitigate its impact on those groups
that are already vulnerable.
_________________________________________________________________________
Immediate Barriers Long-term Barriers
Low skills/skills not in demand Low aspirations
Lack of (recent) work experience Weak financial resources (and its consequences)
Low motivation Absence of positive social networks
Lack of availability Isolation and pockets of deprivation
Lack of employer understanding Poor access to services
Discrimination Health issues