As a researcher at the Norwegian research institute Fafo, which places emphasis on understanding the conditions for participation in working life and society, how do you see the European Year of Skills contributing to the goal of promoting inclusive policies and addressing the specific challenges faced by NEETs in accessing education, employment, and training opportunities?
«The European Year of Skills can draw attention, initiative, and funding, to one of the most important issues for European societies: namely, to successfully include young people into the labour market. Linking young people with employers through skills enhancement is the best investment Europe can make for building a sustainable future».
As a researcher, what do you see as the key barriers that hinder the inclusion of NEETs? And how can the European Year of Skills initiatives, and related policies, effectively tackle these barriers?
«Unfortunately, there are still too many barriers hindering young access to employment. It can be useful to classify barriers into two group: individual and structural.
In terms of individual barriers young NEETs frequently lack work experience and the skills required to enter the labour market, there are also many who are insecure, lacking self-esteem, or suffer from depression or anxiety. I think a lot of focus and effort is being put into solving this issue, and the European Year of Skills is one important contributor here.
On the other hand, there are also major structural barriers hindering young to enter labour markets. In the future we need to pay more attention towards these. A productivity barrier hinders employers tacking a chance on young people for fear that this will reduce the company’s profits. This is about a skills mismatch between employers’ expectations and young people’s position in the labour market. But also, about employers sometimes taking the advantage of young people through no-pay or low pay opportunities. This issue needs to be raised on the broader policy agenda to solve the European NEET problem. Furthermore, young meet a facilitation barrier, that is employers lacking the skills or interest in providing opportunities for young in their businesses. To solve this problem, we need a much stronger focus on how to engage employers. Basically, we need to upgrade employers’ skills on how they can become better at employing young people. We also need to look at labour market regulations. For this we need a much closer dialogue with employers, unions, educational institutions, NGOs and policy makers. For example, many NEETs with completed education and good formal skills say they are excluded from the labour market because employers only recruit people with experiences. This becomes an unnecessary catch 22 situation for young people. We need to find ways of making employers providing on the job training schemes, and to basically give young people a chance to step into the labour market, without taking advantage of young. For this to work we need improved knowledge on how employers think and act. Lastly, there is also a discrimination barrier. It is therefore necessary to also draw attention towards employers’ attitudes towards gender equality, race, disability, and poverty. We need to improve regulation and enforcement of equal opportunities to help young gain access to labour market».
From your perspective, how can research and evidence-based knowledge contribute to shape inclusive policies and programs that effectively address the needs and aspirations of young people, particularly those at risk of becoming NEETs?
«Research is, in my opinion, crucial in documenting efficient policy initiatives and practices. In some researcher’s views there seems to be this idea that evidence-based methodology in the meaning of randomised control trials holds some form of golden standard for evaluating new initiatives and programmes. This method may be good at providing a very precise answer as to whether a specific intervention has the intended effect or not, but is often less able to explain why. I think it is important that research is broad and include all types of methodologically approaches including qualitative methods, policy analysis and discursive analysis to grasp the often complex and multi-faceted interactions between NEETs, local contexts, policy programmes and employers».
Considering the changing nature of work and the increasing importance of digital skills, how can we foster the development of future-oriented skills that empower young people, including NEETs, to navigate a rapidly evolving job market and create pathways to sustainable employment?
«Young people will need digital skills, however, all other types of skills would still be valuable in the future. Social skills, and entrepreneurship and the ability to adapt and be flexible is probably also going to be very important skills in the labour market of tomorrow».
Click here for some interesting reflections about the Impact of EEA & NORWAY Grants
https://www.fafo.no/en/projects/the-impact-of-eea-and-norway-grants
