Just before the end of 2022, Cowork4YOUTH’s second Open Event for the year, organised by one of the project’s partners, ISEAK, took place. The venue of BBK Kuna in beautiful Bilbao in Spain hosted the Event, and various stakeholders experienced in tackling youth unemployment also attended.
Professor Sara de la Rica, director at ISEAK, addressed the opening speech and was followed by the Principal Investigator of Cowork4YOUTH, Assistant Professor Vasilis Avdikos, and Dr Adele Wheelan, researcher from the Economic Social and Research Institute – ESRI. Professor de la Rica talked about the establishment of ISEAK in 2018 and its aim to generate knowledge and transmit it to the society. She underlined the need to give answers to problems and noted that the Open Event is a great opportunity to proceed in creating bridges between researchers and practitioners. Professor de la Rica also talked about her concern about the future of employment, and how the Event could be successful in terms of showing and discussing results produced by the current research in the framework of the project.
Professor Vasilis Avdikos talked about the context of the Cowork4YOUTH project, its overarching objectives and goals, the stepping stones, as well as experimental solutions to the issues emerging. More specifically, towards increasing knowledge and offering concrete policy suggestions against youth disengagement in peripheral/ non metropolitan regions, Professor Avdikos discussed steps such as understanding the current balance between available skills and social needs, evaluating the impact of existing employment policies and formulating pertinent policy recommendations. As for the solutions to be tested towards a living wage, platform economy and collaborative work practices that act as “learning middlegrounds” were the two main ones discussed.
Ainhoa Osés Arranz, researcher at ISEAK, talked about the role of Cowork4YOUTH in addressing youth unemployment by conducting a “diagnosis” of the key labour indicators for the youth and their implications, an analysis of policy responses (e.g. active labour market policies, use of coworking spaces), policy recommendations, and dissemination of the results. The conclusions of the above actions revealed that youth unemployment is still high, quality of jobs is a concern, more attention should be given to vulnerable groups, and that public policies have been implemented, but their effects are yet to be determined.
Dr Adele Whelan, Senior Research Officer at the Economic Social and Research Institute – ESRI, talked about the “urban disadvantage”, or in other words, if it matters where young people live in regards to their employment and job opportunities. The main conclusions deriving from the research include that youths from independent urban towns are more inclined to face obstacles related to coming from a jobless household and being from ethnic minority groups, compared to their peers from rural areas or “even the most urban areas”; and that “the focus on traditional policy has been on highly rural or urban areas, suggesting that, potentially that independent urban towns are falling between the cracks…left-behind places”. Job opportunities, childcare, poor transport and housing provision are possible policy areas that are needed to address these findings, Dr Whelan concluded with.
The first session closed with Dr David Martinez de Lafuente from ISEAK who talked about “The Impact of wage subsidies on youth employment: evidence from the program ‘Lehen Aukera’”, while the next sessions were themed “The contribution of facilitators and collaborative ecosystems” and “Direct intervention actions for youth employment”.
The Open Event speeches were followed by very fruitful discussions between the participants and the plenty of attendees.
For more news and stories about the Cowork4YOUTH project, follow us on our social media (facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn: @Cowork4YOUTH), as well as the website https://www.cowork4youth.org/
