Reducing youth unemployment is a priority of the European cohesion policy, the European Social Fund, Youth Employment Initiative and the European Regional Development Fund. According to ILO (2019) “working poverty, poor job quality and persistent labour market inequalities remain concerns” for Europe. The organisation alarms that globally, 21.2 per cent of young people were not in employment, education or training (NEET) in 2018. Progress during the past ten years has been negligible: in 2008, the NEET rate was 22 per cent. Among young people (aged 15–24), the decline in labour force participation has been even more pronounced, largely owing to extended education and an associated postponement of labour market entry. Youth employment rates closely relate to the general environment, namely legal-political, economic, socio-cultural and educational systems of a country – e.g. labour market regulations; mismatch between youth skills and aspirations and labour market demand and realities; constraints on self-employment and entrepreneurship development. YOUthCAP aims at successful model integration between youth’ associations, institutions, business and other value-chain actors to support higher employability and skill development of young people. The partnership is based on mutual economic, social and training benefits and empowers the participants to function as competent integrated system for the sustainable improvement of livelihoods of young people, considering both the local characteristics and the EU cohesion in progress. Our ambition is to support the occupational adaptation and professional development of youth through career guidance and capacity building of new sector-driven knowledge and skills. Given volatile markets and the unstable economic underpinnings, a focus on innovation and management is relevant. E-platform for Youth Career Guidance and Employability based on the transnational cooperation is a well-designed pathway from school to work that will help youth organizations to improve their performance and young people to find their professional realization. The consortium has the ambition to support the occupational adaptation and professional development of youth and to achieve it through career guidance and capacity development of new sector-driven knowledge and skills in various private public sectors. We will produce extensive studies and analysis on the deficits and the barriers to youth employment and achievement of the European policy priorities in this field. The dynamic network of partners and stakeholders in youth cooperation, higher education, public administration, business and civil society guarantees the synergy of the structural elements for building youth capacity.
The aim of the project was to promote the regeneration of communities via development, transfer, circulation and exchange of innovative practices and new type skills supporting capacity building for youth. YOUthCAP aimed to support the occupational adaptation and professional development of youth through career guidance and capacity building of new sector-driven knowledge and skills. We aim to: • Stimulate the professional realization of the young people in business, public administration, NGOs. • Career guidance, innovative education, knowledge transfer and continuous training. • Professional development in the sectors corresponding to youth profiles - abilities and interests • Establish efficient relationships with stakeholders and increase strategic partnerships that support professional pathways of the young people. YOUthCAP goal was to offer complementary transferable skills and abilities combined with educational and advanced professional competencies that will increase the employment opportunities.
“Employing Innovative tools for raising YOUTH organizations’ CAPacity and youth carrier development” - YOUthCAP was built upon the idea for a successful model as a way whereby a successful integration among youth’ associations, institutions, business and other value-chain actors could be operationalized to support higher employability and skill development of young people. Our project followed the EU recommendations for establishing strategic partnerships for youth via skill and competencies training for a successful youth organizations’ performance in the field of youth career development through continued education, apprenticeship, traineeship. The main needs we addressed were related to the low employment rate of young people, which impedes the process of acquiring human capital and increases dependency on support systems, diminishing the countries’ long-term growth potential. All partners gathered around the idea to create immediate adequacy of the employee or worker with the true labour environment as this was a major challenge for participating countries. A steady partner network was created and its functioning contributed to achieving project outcomes.