Integrating youth into employment

Youth unemployment rates are generally significantly higher than the total unemployment rate in most industrialised countries. Once school-leavers join the ranks of the unemployed, they face even greater difficulties in finding employment. It is therefore crucial to help young people with low qualifications to enter the labour market. We do this across all our business units.

Win4Youth

  At the beginning of 2010, we launched our new Adecco Group Core Values. One of the initiatives to bring the values alive is the Win4Youth sponsorship project. Adecco colleagues from around the world can join together and run for a good cause. The Adecco Group will fund every five kilometres completed and the money raised will be donated to six foundations focusing on the integration of young people into the labour market. The Win4Youth initiative will culminate on 7 November 2010, when 65 colleagues from all continents will run in the New York City Marathon.

The following foundations in India, Haiti, France, Spain, the USA and Chile have been selected to receive the funds:

Parikrma Humanity Foundation (India)

  • Project: To transform lives of underprivileged youth in urban India for a better life through first class education.
  • Since: 2003
  • Focus: Children from 5-15 in urban India

Education for Haiti (Haiti)

  • Project: Primary schooling at the centre ruraux d'éducation participative (CREP) and the Eglise Unie d'Haïti, which are attended by the poorest children.
  • Since: 1946
  • Focus: Young children in rural Haïti

Entreprendre pour Apprendre (France)

  • Project: The “Company programme” accompanies classes of 15 - 20 students, proposing a guideline to create a
    mini-company in seven steps.
  • Since: 2002
  • Focus: Teenagers from 13-20 in France

Fundació Èxit (Spain)

  • Project: To achieve social and job insertion of young people in Spain who are at risk of social exclusion.
  • Since: 2000
  • Focus: Teenagers from 16-18 in Catalonia and Madrid

The National Urban League (USA)

  • Project: “Ready” provides enhanced academic and social support to high school students as they prepare for post-secondary success.
  • Since: 1910
  • Focus: Afro American youth from 14-18 in the US

Fundación de Solidaridad Romanos XII (Chile)

  • Project: Training centre to enhance employability in the field of computer technology and telecommunications.
  • Since: 1991
  • Focus: Young adults from 18-29 in Santiago

 

 

Besides the Win4Youth initiative, Adecco has already been involved in the following projects:

  • QUADRIGA: This is a public-private partnership pilot project involving the Jacobs Foundation, Adecco Germany and the German Federal Employment Agency. The pilot project, launched in 2007 and set to run until 2009, is a new and efficient way to integrate non-qualified people under 25 into the workforce. Participants – currently around 240 in eight different locations – are employed by Adecco and receive personalised training and coaching while undertaking projects for our clients. So far, the success rate for getting people into employment is at 70%.

 

  • PREJAL: Adecco Argentina and the Spanish Adecco Foundation are partners in this programme run by the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation (AECI), the Spanish Ministry of Labour and Social Issues (MTAS), and the International Labour Office (ILO, the UN agency which seeks the promotion of social justice and internationally recognised human and labour rights). It started in 2005 under the name PREJAL (Promotion of Youth Employment in Latin America – Promoción del Empleo Juvenil en América Latina), and is planned to run for four years. The aim is to train and employ young men and women at risk of social exclusion in Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Peru and the Dominican Republic.
    Until the end of 2009, 18'000 young, disadvantaged people could benefit from the programme.