From 21 to 24 September 2018 took place in Baile Felix / Romania a seminar about “Youth Access to the Labour Market”, organized by CSDR / Departamentul Educare - Formare al CSDR (Confederaţia Sindicatelor Democratice din România / Departamentul Educare - Formare al Confederaţiei Sindicatelor Democratice din România), with the support of EZA and of the European Union.
The most important aspect of the seminar was the unanimous agreement to develop and implement several projects to support the integration of youth into the labour market.
The youth integration into the labour market is closely related to their training according to labour market demands, their career orientation, the offer of attractive and well paid jobs and of continuous training at the workplace.
As CSDR has outlined as a conclusion of last year’s seminar, the situation of youth on the labour market continues to be of actuality. The future of Europe cannot be drawn without consulting the youth, who are the future beneficiaries.
Many of the actual jobs will not exist when the children that now start school will be adults, other jobs will appear, the digitalisation is going to produce its effects that are not necessarily positive, schools are continuously changing and being forced to deal with several challenges and in this process the youth are the most exposed.
The digitalisation of the economy, services, information, social life in general brings already a lot of changes in our lives and we are only at the beginning. The benefits of digitalisation are important and sometimes even essential for example in medicine, special flights, air transport, cars manufacture, research etc. The robots have the advantage of not getting tired and of being able to work with precision in environments hostile for human beings. With all these, I do believe, that the error of a robot can have a catastrophic impact. The security of the use of the artificial intelligence needs to become the main concern for all the decision-taking persons at the country level but also at the European Union level. The given approval for the use of the personal data is a formality that cannot protect someone from manipulation, fake news, biased information on social media. The youth is the one who uses the most the digital technologies, they are basically dependents on them. The information is most often obtained through the use of the search engines in the virtual world. If there is a lack of security regarding the information flow, the threat of this practice is the fact that you end up getting a wrong view regarding the truth and the perceptions of the searched answers. Moreover, the easiness of finding certain information through a google search might diminish the thinking capacity, logical analysis, understanding the phenomena or the problem in its depth. The lack of exercise in using the brain can only transform the human being from a thinking, logical person in a person trapped in the routine and in automatisms. The national states and the European Union need to be preoccupied by the effects of the digitalisation towards the arrival of new professions and new type of work relationships. The children that are just starting the school now, will find at the end a labour market with professions that dissapeared and with new ones taking their place.
The work legislation needs to be updated according to the access of youth on the labour market. This was a conclusion at which all the participants adhered. The employers should be forced, by law, to replace the mandatorism of getting hired based on worked experience with the mandatorism of ensuring the youth training at their workplace. In Romania, the young people are starting their professional career with salaries that are not motivating enough, the only argument being the lack of experience. We accept that a young person, at the start of their career, is lacking the knowledge and the skills of an experienced worker, but the young person has enthusiasm, creativity, power. All these are strong points which can transform the young person in an added value for the employer given that it exists an onboarding / adaptation training period at the workplace. That is why, the work law should offer the same level of salary for the same workplace no matter the age. Finally, the young people have special needs. They are at the beginning of the professional career and family life. Without support, they are vulnerable, being even treated by the social exclusion. We believe that the work law should offer them certain contract-based facilities: substantial bonuses at hiring, when starting a family or when buying a house. These aids will be quickly recovered through the work done by the beneficiary and relax work relationship and environment. The young persons are going to be helped overcome the worries of their existence and focus on a professional career and responsible family life. After analysing the level of unemployment among the youth, their common future in Europe, we’re asking ourselves: are they a vulnerable social category?
The presentations focused on the seminar’s themes and each one was an useful lesson about best practices, issues with which the participant countries dealt with and their solutions.
During the discussions the following topics were outlined:
- The European Commission youth guarantee project is being implemented in all the participant countries;
- Other national programs that support the youth are available;
- A discrepancy between qualified and unqualified workforce exists;
- The workforce migration, young universities graduates, is more and more active and brings important damages to the countries that are losing this workforce;
- The dual school represents a very important step in the youth training and development for their insertion on the labour market;
- The school is not totally adapted to the requirements of the labour market;
- Not all the youth are well prepared, qualified to easily find a job;
- Not all the young people want to have a job;
- The work legislation is not friendly enough for the young people, a lack of work experience constitutes an obstacle for the youth in finding a job;
- Studies that explore the future jobs that will replace the current ones are not available.
The 10 points presented above represent the seminar resolution.
The main question, asked by most of the participants, is how much were the youth involved in the decision taking on the issues that concern them?
The majority responded that in a very small amount.
All the participants proved, during the seminar’s days, involvement and availability in having a constructive dialogue, the opinions expressed being well argumented. The participants showed a particular interest regarding the theme of the seminar and we have learned from one another.