App-titude
Start date: Sep 1, 2015,
End date: Aug 31, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
Youth unemployment is a major problem across Europe and a hot political issue in all European countries.
In the countries involved in this project, the following youth unemployment rates are registered: The Netherlands: 15,5%, Belgium: 21,6% , France: 25,2%, Luxembourg: 18%. Despite the crisis, there are over 2 million unfilled job vacancies in the EU. Marianne Thyssen, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, finds high youth unemployment and inactivity unacceptable and emphasizes that EU policy should tackle youth unemployment in order to avoid ‘a lost generation’. This generation is entering the labour market. They will have to work for at least 30 to 45 years, some in jobs that do not exist today and others perhaps in jobs that are disappearing. This affects the skills needed across many different jobs and sectors.
The App-titude project develops 2 didactic and attractive products which can be used by young job seekers or their coaches when attending job fairs, organizing meet & greets, etc. Our tools will be available for all partners wanting to help young people setting their first steps on the labour market. The app will improve awareness of young people about the work attitudes of the future. The app enables them to scan their own skills and gives tips and tricks on how to react and cope with different situations at work.
Next to the app, 5 fact sheets will be available. These fact sheets will represent the main challenges tackling youth unemployment in today's labour market and offer more understanding and answers with regard to the subject.
App-titude is a partnership between 4 European training funds for temporary agency workers (STOOF, FAF.TT, FSI and VFU-FFI) and 2 external experts. KU Leuven University is our scientific partner and Atolo is our communication and L&D specialist.
The fact sheets and the app are the 2 products or tools developed in this project.
As far as the fact sheets are concerned, we want to focus on peer learning and the exchange of best practices in order to implement and transfer innovative projects into our daily work. We are going to learn from our peers during intervision sessions moderated by an expert (Atolo). Each intervision session has a main topic ( Skill mismatching, Early school leaving, Different generations, Competences of the future, First steps on the labour market ). Usefull outcomes on the topics will be registered in the fact sheets. These fact sheets will add a new dimension to our services.
The second activity is the development of the app. KU Leuven University do research on the 'work attitudes of the future'. A large scale survey will provide us with the most essential work attitudes of the future. These skills will be verified with our stakeholders and translated into the content of the app. The App workforce will develop the concept, functionalities and look and feel of the app. Before the launch in February 2017, the app will be tested with intermediate and final target groups.
Our major priority in 'App-titude' is to empower all our stakeholders, both temporary work agencies and other labour market partners who coach youngsters in their first steps on the labour market. We want them to gain more expertise to tackle today’s challenges on youth employment and provide them with usefull tools to deliver a high level quality service towards the young job seekers.