International approaches to tackling long-term unemployment amongst vulnerable groups
Dr Andrew Dean Marchmont Observatory University of Exeter a.dean@exeter.ac.uk
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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
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SUCCESSFUL METHODS FOR GETTING THE LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED INTO WORK: A SHORT OVERVIEW
Emma Clarence (Policy Analyst) and Stina Heikkil채 (Intern) OECD LEED Trento Centre for Local Development
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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’.
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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.
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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.
Targeting disadvantaged areas Another approach to reaching vulnerable groups in the labour market is areabased 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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 crowdfunding 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 ‘reinvent 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
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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 Low skills/skills not in demand Lack of (recent) work experience Low motivation Lack of availability Lack of employer understanding Discrimination
Long-term Barriers Low aspirations Weak financial resources (and its consequences) Absence of positive social networks Isolation and pockets of deprivation Poor access to services Health issues
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