Support youth unemployment with the Youth Guarantee initiative

BITCI News - Nov 27, 2014

Youth unemployment in Ireland is currently at over 24%, at a cost of over €3.16 billion to the economy – that is almost 2% for our GDP. Young people are increasingly finding themselves marginalised, caught in the catch 22 of no experience, no job – no job, no experience.

ygYouth Guarantee (YG) is an EU initiative established in response to growing youth unemployment throughout Europe. Ballymun in Dublin was one of eighteen areas in Europe awarded YG funding to tackle youth unemployment head on by providing a quality offer of training, work placement or employment within four months of becoming unemployed.

Youth Guarantee is a natural fit to our existing Ready for Work programme, created to support marginalised groups to become better jobseekers. The BITCI Youth Guarantee Pilot uses the Ready for Work model and works in partnership with participating businesses to offer:

Training & Workshops: created specifically for marginalised groups and focusing on communication, building confidence, managing change plus CV preparation and mock interviews.

4 Weeks Work Experience: participants’ skills and interests are matched as far as possible to work placements , which are part-time, unpaid and very flexible taking into consideration business needs at all times.

One to One Support: providing post placement guidance and support as participants engage in their jobsearch with vital newly-acquired skills and experience

Since the pilot began in early October, we have already supported eight participants through training, all of whom are now on placements, or in the case of our first participant in paid employment. The pilot will run until the end of May 2015 and we are continuing our search for training venues, workshop facilitators and most importantly for work experience opportunities in 2015. As our CEO put so succinctly:  “Business in the Community has over 12 years’ experience of helping companies run supported employment programmes. Our mission is to harness the power of Irish business to maximise its positive impact on all its stakeholders and society. We believe that Irish companies can make a strong contribution to people who are disadvantaged in the labour market by providing them with valuable work experience.”

To discuss these opportunities for employee engagement, community impact and brand building, please contact Aisling: afleming@bitc.ie