Context / background of project Airport areas are lands of contrast. On the one hand they benefit from a strong economic dynamic, airports often being the main economic engines in their areas, offering thousands of jobs. On the other hand local populations often suffer from high-rates of unemployment, even though many job opportunities remain unfilled. Indeed, there is a lasting gap between “demand and offer”. It has several causes, depending on the territories, amongst which: • Low attractiveness of airport jobs for people living in these areas ; • The lack of competencies of local populations. Thanks to the even-deeper digitalization or a growing use of robotics, we already know that the companies’ needs in skill will evolve. In order to prevent that the current mismatch between offers and demands grows, local stakeholders need to anticipate the evolution of work patterns. Objectives 1. Develop a lasting strategic partnership and increase our capacity to operate together at transnational level so as to share and confront our ideas, practices and methods, to learn from different cultures and different ways to address these issues; 2. Compare and disseminate tools for the promotion of airport areas and jobs (job agencies, economic development agencies, public bodies …) 3. Gather our knowledge on the evolution of jobs in airport areas and identify the main causes explaining the mismatch between the local job offer and the local population. 4. Produce policy recommendations and begin to work on a more ambitious project that would include implementation of real innovative solutions, taking advantage of this first work of experience exchange. Number and profile of participants The partnership consists of 8 partners from 5 different countries - 3 local stakeholders operating in the field of employment and training in airport areas : the GIP Emploi Roissy (Paris, France), the Brussels Airport House (Brussels, Belgium) and Orly International ; -1 Economic Development Agency, the “Wirtschaftsförderungsgesellschaft Dahme-Spreewald mbH” (Berling, Germany) and the “Metropolregion FrankfurtRheinMain” (Francfort, Germany) - 1 European association of regional and local authorities, the Airport Regions Conference (Brussels, Belgium) - 1 city : Beek, near Maastricht in the Netherlands, - 1 local government : The Ajuntament of El Prat, near Barcelona in Spain - 1 regional government: Regional Authority FrankfurtRheinMain Activities Thanks to desk research activities, workshops, visits (companies facing recruitment problems, local partners) and field work, we will work on the four following work challenges : • Perception and promotion of jobs in airport areas: considering the perception of jobs in those areas, are the existing promotion tools efficient? How to duplicate them in other territories? What are the remaining gaps? • Matching workforce qualifications and companies’ requirements: Is there really a shortage between the needs of employers and existing staff qualifications? What are the good practices to reduce this gap? • Anticipation of future work patterns • Synthesis of the findings, implications for the attractiveness of airport areas: considering our diagnosis, which solutions can be developed to promote these jobs? Results and impact The project aims to provide: • With knowledge on other tools to promote these jobs; • The airport stakeholders with a forum for debate and exchanges, as well as transnational networking opportunity. Longer term benefits We consider this project as the first phase of a more global one : • Our exchange of experience will ensure that we have a strong and up-to date diagnosis. This will result in the publication of recommendations ; Another EU project will let us implement innovative solutions in order to develop the attractiveness of jobs in airport areas and build a long-lasting and qualitative match between local populations and job opportunities.
Context / background of project : At the start of the project, air traffic was growing at an unprecedented rate, and airports and their neighbouring territories continued to keep on growing, benefiting from these undeniable engines of growth and jobs. At the same time, we analyse high levels of unemployment among local populations, mainly young people, while many airports faced difficulties in meeting the needs of the many businesses located on their platforms. For example, on Paris CDG, Brussels and Barcelona, the airport is located in areas with a high rate of unemployment nearby and a lower level of qualifications than the regional or national average. European airports had to face a gap between the expected skills and those of the local population, as well as the problem of attracting employees to the places and positions offered. All this is accentuated with the emergence of new expected skills and new jobs due to new uses and the increasing use of new technologies. It is clear that employment at airports has been, and will continue to be, a source of growth, development and economic impact. Thus, it is essential for local actors to anticipate changes in jobs and skills and to innovate in order to solve these problems. Objectives : 1. Deploy a transnational partnership between European airports with common problems ; 2. Confront the approaches, tools and practices for promotion and employment inside their territories and disseminate the results ; 3. Collect analyses on employment trends in these territories and define the main causes of mismatch between the local job offer and the local population ; 4. Formulate territorial recommendations based on these initial exchanges of experience, and go further by facilitating the emergence of one or more ambitious projects. Number and profile of participants : The partnership consists of 8 partners from 5 different countries: - 1 city : Beek (Maastricht, the Netherlands) ; - 1 local government : The Ajuntament of El Prat, (Barcelona, Spain) ; - 3 local stakeholders operating in the field of employment and training in airport areas : the GIP Emploi Roissy (Paris, France), Aviato, formerly called the Brussels Airport House (Brussels, Belgium) and Orly International (Orly, France); -1 Economic Development Agency, the “Wirtschaftsförderungsgesellschaft Dahme-Spreewald mbH” (Berling, Germany) ; - 1 regional government: Regional Authority FrankfurtRheinMain ; - 1 European association of regional and local authorities, the Airport Regions Conference (Brussels, Belgium). Results and impact : The project resulted in : - Developing a strong collaboration between 7 European airports areas and increasing their capacity for joint action at transnational level: - Creating tools for analysing employment contexts and good practices which were developed; - Obtaining a concrete overview of the tools and best practices of the airport areas in terms of employment and training, and to compare them in order to study their transferability; - Gathering our knowledge on the evolution of jobs in European airport areas and identify the main causes of mismatch between the local job offer and the population. Specific work has been done on the impact of COVID-19 on these highly exposed territories; - Disseminating the results, through a guide of best practices, to other airports and European local authorities; - Exploring ways for future collaboration among members. Longer term benefits : We consider this project as the first phase of more global projects : - The dissemination of our exchanges of experience and our workshops will make possible to transmit an accurate diagnosis and recommendations applicable to other European airport areas and local communities; - Other bilateral and multilateral projects may be developed in a near future . It will develop innovative solutions in order to facilitate the attractiveness of jobs in airport areas and to build a long-lasting and qualitative match between local populations and employment opportunities.