Influence Of Training In The Youth Employment Programs In Andalusia

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyse the Program Emple@Joven implanted by the Junta of Andalusia, Spain through the Decree-Law 6/2014, of the 29^th of April to characterize the typology of participants in the different initiatives of the formative level accredited by the Andalusian Service of Employement and determine if the formative level of young people who are unemployed has an influence in the efficiency of the program. The methodological focus that is used is quantitative through the usage of analysis of secondary sources. The principle conclusions point to the importance of training as a key element to prepare for the hard path of labour insertion of young people and the direct effect of the efficiency of the training programme, a reality that can be extrapolated to the current labour market, where the importance of the level of training with respect to young people’s insertion into the labour market is determined.

Keywords: Employabilityemployment programsyouth groupyouth unemployment

Introduction

The impact the recession caused on the working market, and still is, causing devastating effects over the chance of work of the young collective, especially those with low qualifications (García, 2011; Rocha, 2012; Homs, Caprile, & Sanz de Miguel, 2014; Pérez, 2014). We should be aware of the difficulties that the youth go through and their vulnerability shown during an intense recession and prolonged in time that has become a worrying persistence with lots of unemployment (Braña & Antón, 2007; García, 2011; Ayestarán, Ramón, la Cal, & Muñoz, 2014). The slow recuperation will have harmful effects over a significant percentage of youth of the working age and will not be able to apply for jobs because of their low qualifications, which means that companies will have to employ have who have recently qualified, which ignores a high percentage of the currently unemployed people.

Faced with such a delicate situation, Andalucia was able to put into action its own programmes of employment, with the clear intention of influencing the Andalusian society acting on the needs and problems that were detected to provoke a change of dynamics in the situation of the young collective activating employment through different initiatives as we will see below.

• Through the Decree-Law 6/2014 of the 29th of April, the autonomous community of Andalusia has pioneered the application of European initiatives of youth employment to give an immediate and urgent response to the serious problem of youth unemployment in Andalusia, with the implementation of specific measures that stimulate and improve the employability conditions of young Andalucians.

• The programme objective of analysis is regulated under the Decree-Law provided for by the Statute of Autonomy for situations of extraordinary and urgent necessity. The data reflects the urgency of rapid action, the serious repercussion for people between the ages 16 and 29,with an unemployment rate that has tripled since 2007 and that has meant that one in every two young people are unemployed, as said by the decree. To this global indicator they add: the high temporary work of young people that do have jobs (97.1% of contracts in 2013); the loss of correspondence in the qualification and the working situation (43.7% of unemployment between the superior titles); the high permanence in unemployment (one in every four claimants has as such inscribed as more than a year); and the lack of previous work experience (that effects 28.3% of the population of young unemployed people).

With the implementation of the measures and help that can be gathered from the Decree-Law that was published in the Official Release of the Junta de Andalucia number 86 (page 8) of the 7^th of May 2014, the Andalusian Government wanted to act on: the better employability of young unemployed people with the objective of inserting them in to the working market through an integral and personalized treatment; in addition to the acquisition of working experience with the realization of professional practices including the ones that are done in the environment of research and the development and employment for the development of specific projects that have a social interest through its incentive through the Certificate of Youth Employment.

The Emple@Joven is composed of different action initiatives adjusted to the different profiles and specific necessities for the collective objective of:

• Activating youth employment: the means of participation in the initiatives regulated by the Decree-Law 06/2014 through a plan of action individualized that optimizes the capacities and qualifications of young people interested in participating in the programme.

• Social Cooperation and Community for the Promotion of Youth Employment: whose objective is promoting the creation of jobs by encouraging the employment of people by Andalucian Town Halls for the accomplishment of projects of social cooperation and communitythat allows them to improve their employability through the acquisition or recuperation of professional competences that are normally developed in the worksplace.

• Professional practices in companies: whose objective is to promote the work placement of young people through the development of non-working professional experiences.

• Bono of Young Employment: whose objective is to promote employment and facilitate the incorporation to the working market of young Andalucian people through economic aid to people or entities that, complyingswith the established requisites, formalize a working contract with a titular person of a Bono of Young Employment.

• Grants for the development of I+D+i: whose objective is the use of University formation an Andalucian social and productive web through the conception of grants to young people with a university degree or a postgraduate degree for the accomplishment of professional practices destined to develop I+D+i projects.

Problem Statement

The key elements that can be extracted as a base for the approach of the investigation are the following:

• The insertion of work in young people is about a topic of great relevance and actuality.

• The young collective is especially affected by unemployment.

• The persistence of elevated rates of youth unemployment reopens the debate about the complicated situation of the young population. As it has an uncertain future that could leave them out of the labour market.

• The consequences derived of the high rates of unemployment have a significant effect on the rest of society.

• The exposure to unemployment of the young collective especially the ones with low qualifications has negative consequences that produce a great concern as they are big and persistent.

• Another question of interest is that young employment policies should not be directed at the youth in its entirety, instead it should be concentrated on those who have bigger difficulties to integrate themselves in the working market. They should answer to a very heterogeneous collective that have diverse necessities and should respond to the problems from different environments and with specific programmes.

Research Questions

The following question is asked: Is educational level a determining factor in the impact of the programme in long and medium term?

Purpose of the Study

From the defined question in the last point, the investigation has the principal objective: analyse the typology of users in each line of action according to their formative level.

Through the analysis of the official statistics of the program we want to determine if the formative level of the unemployed youth has an influence on the efficiency of the programme.

Research Methods

Keeping in mind the nature and the complex characteristics of the topic of investigation, we opt to develop the investigation using quantitative methodology.

The technique of investigation that has been used has been the analysis of secondary sources, in this case, centred in the official statistics proposed by the General Direction of Politics of Active of Employment of the Andalucian Employment and the Argos Observatory of the programme Emple@Joven regulated by the Decree-Law 6/2014 of the 29^th of April.

The statistical data that are defined in function of the indicators and evidence marked in the matrix of evaluation to give an answer to the research question. Thus, on the 23^rd of February of 2016 a petition of statistical information through the electronic Register of the Junta of Andalusia (transition system of electronics PID@), received a favourable resolution and report with the requested data on the 20^th of April of 2016.

Once the data was received and refined it was analysed keeping in mind the interest indicators that were established: stakes of unemployment; stakes of employment; the number of young people inscribed in the Andalusian Service of Employment to the 31^st of March of 2014;the number of people that have solicited their inclusion in the programme Emple@Joven; the number of young people that signed up for the programme; and the number of young people that have participated in each one of the lines of actuation keeping in mind the variable level of studies.

Findings

Looking at the information received from the Service of Promotion of Local Development of the General Direction of Active Politics of Employment of the Andalucian Service of Employment and the statistical data contributed by the Argos Observatory we can discover the following information of interest for the study in question:

Unemployment and Employment Rates are calculated based on data from the Active Population Survey (EPA) published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) every trimester. By age, it publishes the data by five year groups so you cannot calculate the rates for the collective 18-29 years who are beneficiaries of the programme. It has been decided to analyse the rates of the age group 16 to 29 years in the 1st term of 2014 and 4^th term of 2015 (the term prior to the start of the new programme regulated by Law 2/2015).

In Table 2 , we can see a significant drop of 4.1% in the Unemployment Rate that did not correspond with the slight increase of only 0.5% in the Employment Rate (percentage of young people who actually have a job).

In Table 3 , we can see the number of young people between 18 and 29 years old by level of registered studies in the Andalucian Employment Service on March 31, 2014 (date fixed by the Decree-Law for to participate in the Social and Community Cooperation initiative), the number of young people who requested their inclusion in the same and, finally, the number of young people who sign the entry commitment (requirement to participate in the initiatives of the Emple@Joven Program).

To facilitate the analysis, we will include young people in 3 groups: basic, secondary and post-secondary. Highlight that the most represented group is that of young people with a secondary education level, followed by those who have reached a post-secondary level of education (level at which there is a significant difference depending on sex) and for those who have a basic level.

Another fact of interest is the decrease in the number of young people who apply to the programme and who finally sign the commitment within the basic level. In the first case, probably due to ignorance of the existence of the programme and, in the second case, that they do not have access to any initiative (only to Activate Young Employment) and decline to enter it.

However, there is a significant increase in applications for enrollment in the programme of young people with postsecondary education. This circumstance is motivated by the fact that, in order to be beneficial of the Young Employment Bond, it was not necessary for the young person to be registered as a job seeker.

Since our interest is to know which profiles of young people have really participated in the programme, we will focus on the number of young people who signed the entry commitment and the number of contracts by level of studies and initiative of action.

Regarding the young people who sign the entry commitment, in Table 3 we can see that, again, the most represented group is secondary school (65.8%), followed by studies post-secondary (27.2%) and basic (6.6%).

If we look at Table 4 , it is clearly visible that the higher the level of education, the greater participation in action initiatives. The only initiative in which you could participate with a lower level of education at the secondary level it is the Social and Community Cooperation, although 68.5% of the contracts have been for secondary levels, 25.4% for post-secondary levels and 6.1% for the basic level, which shows that low training clearly penalizes access to some of the contracts available in the city councils.

Contracts for men predominate, however, the difference in the profile of postsecondary studies, where contracts with women represent 65.1% while men remain at 34.9%, diametrically opposite situation, for example, with the profile high school, where women represent 42.1% while men 57.9%. The contracts have been for jobs in "Elementary occupations" (46.7%), followed by "Technicians and professionals scientists and intellectuals "(11.3%)," Craftsmen and skilled workers of the manufacturing industry and construction "(11.1%) and" Technicians; support professionals "(10.9%).

Regarding the type of projects presented by the Town Halls, it has been mostly for "Revaluation of public spaces" (19.6%), followed by "Promotion and development" projects cultural "(16.8%)," Promotion of tourism and sports "(14%)," Proximity services, cleaning, Surveillance and security "(12%) and" Assistance care and home help delivery" (11.1%).

Of the other three initiatives, the data by level of studies of the Youth Employment Bond and the I+D+i Scholarships are not available, just comment that the minimum level of access in the first case was Secondary and for university scholarships. On the other hand, in terms of internships, most of them were for university students (65%), with a predominance of the profile of "Social sciences and legal "among university graduates (59.2%), and the branch" Administrative "(28.1%) and "Health" (14.5%) in FP.

Conclusion

Throughout this article we have presented evidence that allows us to determine the influence of the formative level in the effectiveness of the Emple@Joven programme.

Based on the data we can affirm that it is clearly shown that young people with a basic formative level have very limited access to the initiatives of the programme and their possibilities employability improvement are very reduced, having a direct short-term effect for the profiles of a basic level and an effect more related to a higher level of education.

This reality can be extrapolated to the current labour market, where the importance of training in employment prospects of young people is crucial. Highlight, that the loss of employment has focused on these years of economic crisis in the young group and in the less educated profiles, whose employment rates will continue to be low and their employment status will not be good in the short-medium term. The perspectives show that there will be hardly any work for those who complete only mandatory education, since the greatest options will be concentrated on the most qualified young people, leaving the lower educational levels out of the market, accentuating the observed labour inequalities during the recession. The level of education seems to act as a shield against unemployment and as a lever for young population that wants to join the labour market (Ibáñez, 2014).

Therefore, the problems of insertion in the labour market of young people differ according to their educational level (García, 2011; Rocha, 2012; Banco de España, 2014; Foundation for Economics Studies Applied, 2014; Ibáñez, 2014), which requires differentiated policies to face different problems. Without much more powerful public and private initiatives and different from the current ones to improve the employability of poorly qualified young people, the difficulties will persist and the measures will continue to be insufficient to solve the underlying problem.

The present reality is that the difficulties remain and that the measures adopted are proving very insufficient to solve the problems (García, 2011; Sánchez, 2013). The usefulness of some initiatives of action is very limited and does not improve the situation of young people in the medium or long term, and even I would say, that in that aspect, they are useless, which makes it necessary to fine-tune the diagnosis to design correctly the most appropriate policies for the group in question, which allows prioritizing and specialize the actions adjusting the available resources to the needs and vulnerabilities.

An essential aspect that should be taken into account in the programme is the large volume of young people without basic training level that require training resources according to the labor market to increase their employability. The programme should be rethought in the sense of focusing more on giving training to those who do not have any, giving experience to those who have training but do not have work experience and offer more alternatives to those with proven work experience.

The problem of youth unemployment is one of the great challenges that should be answered by the policy, a problem that is difficult to solve, influenced by an infinite number of variables, but in which the level training has a determining role in the prospects of young people's labor insertion.

There is no single and generalizable solution that guarantees success to the challenges that can be faced with guarantees of success that could raise the employment level of young people, especially in a recession scenario and a little labour market dynamic with little capacity to generate employment like the current one. Addressing this issue requires, all in all in this case, adopt an integrated and coherent approach that combines macro and microeconomic interventions in different fields of action (educational, labour, social, employment policies, etc.) taking into account that the key to a successful youth employment policy is a healthy overall economic situation.

References

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