Employment Promotion for Youths - the Youth in Work Progamme of Northrine-Westphalia

This programme was created in 1998 to tackle the problem of about 10,000 youths in long-term unemployment in the German Land of Northrine-Westphalia. Bringing together the private sector (enterprises and chambers), the labour administration, the municipalities and the trade unions, the objective was to make a job offer to each of the 10,000 jobless youths under 25 years of age.

The approach, following the principle of "support and challenge", included:

• contacting all members of the target group and conducting follow-up measures;

• providing individual, flexible coaching and guidance services, and thus assisting in setting up and implementing a step-by-step development plan for the young people;

• avoiding the creation of new institutional structures for this programme; instead, existing institutions of labour market and employment policy were supposed to co-operative in innovative ways in order to optimize existing resources and capacities;

• innovative ways included project management with a central steering committee, decentralised regional responsibilities and regional instruments (conferences, round tables with the various stakeholders) to put the initiative into practice on the local level. Monitoring and evaluation activities allowed for a comprehensive data basis and timely corrections during the process.

Programme results after three years showed that far more than the initial number of youths had been contacted. As a matter of fact, 16,200 youths had been contacted and 41% of these have been able to get a job (more details).

Another positive result of the initiative lies in the fact that cooperation between the involved partners has improved and has led to new approaches, joint activities and closer institutional ties. The programme web site provides conclusions and insights about the deficiencies that still exist and proposes solutions for better project management of programmes like "Youth in Work".

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