Hungary has a high proportion of inactive young people, and their chances of entering the labour market has been made even worse by the COVID-19. What measures and programmes help them specifically? Are they effective?
The hybrid conference IPS4NEETS, organised jointly by the InterRegio Forum Association and the Hétfa Research Institute on 17 November 2021, explored the situation of Hungarian NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), presenting some of the solutions that could help them, as well as their evaluation.
The event was organised because of two reasons: the realization of the project run by the InterRegio Forum Association, and the launch of a new one by the Hétfa Research Institute. Both projects are funded by the Norwegian Funds. The IPS4NEETS final conference was also an opportunity for researchers and organisations interested in the subject to share their knowledge and experience, thereby supporting young people that are out of the labour market and education.
The main objective of the international research project Individual Placement and Support for NEETs through Education Youth Technology Platform (EYTP), which is conducted in partnership with the InterRegio Forum, is to enable counsellors working with inactive young people to develop their professional competencies through the “Maturing Model” (MM) and the “Individual Placement and Support” (IPS) methods, and thus to better find tailor-made solutions for youth in need.
The newly launched international research project “Lost Millennials: Transnational Research Network for the Evaluation of Initiatives Targeting 25+ NEETs”, led by the HÉTFA Research Institute, will evaluate the impact of the programmes targeting the NEETs over 25 years old.
Márton Csillag, the Senior Researcher at BI, presented the lessons learnt from the Youth Employment PartnerSHIP project. Concerning the 90-day job trial programme offered to young jobseekers under the Youth Guarantee Programme, he highlighted that although it has had a positive impact (especially compared to public employment), the number of those most in need among the participants is relatively low. He also pointed out that only 40% of the participants were retained at the same firm after the end of the job trial, and many of them received lower wages than before.
