The Seminar “Youth - a vulnerable category on the labour market” took place from 30 May to 1 June 2019 in Căciulata / Romania, organized by CSDR / Departamentul Educare - Formare al CSDR (Confederaţia Sindicatelor Democratice din România / Departamentul Educare - Formare al Confederaţiei Sindicatelor, with the support of EZA and of the European Union. The seminar was part of the EZA project co-ordination about “Youth employment”.
41 representatives of workers’ organisations from Romania, Austria, Bulgaria, Ireland, Portugal, Republic of Moldova (as guests) and Spain attended the seminar.
The most important aspect of the seminary was to discover certain things that will clarify whether indeed the youth represents a vulnerable category on the labour market or not.
From the whole presentations and discussions that took place during the Seminar, it resulted that indeed the youth encounters difficulties regarding the search of workplace at their start of the career.
A work visit of a company acting in the salt industry, where CSDR has an affiliated organisation, was done. Together with the trade union representatives, the youth’s problems from that company were discussed.
Some of the seminar’s conclusions were the following:
- All the European Union states have to deal with the workforce migration, in particular among the youth;
- Youth’s perception regarding an educational vocational path within the vocational schools is a negative one;
- The majority of young people considers that the vocational education is an inferior type of education;
- Among young people we have identified an exclusive focus on obtaining a University degree;
- The initial training from schools and universities is not all the time oriented and correlated with the labour market demands and with its dynamics;
- The request concerning the youth’s experience level at hiring should be replaced with the employer’s obligation to integrate them at the workplace through training programs;
- The digital technology will be a factor of global economic equalization;
- The use of the digital technology will make work productivity equalised as well;
- The digital technology will not affect the labour market but it will certainly produce major changes on the labour market dynamics through the arrival of new types of jobs;
- There is hope that things will evolve in a positive and upward way. Of course, therefore is needed: solidarity, sincere collaboration and common objectives at the European Union level;
- Youth is an important resource and it has to be encouraged and helped because it definitely represents a factor that will generate progress;
- The young people need to understand better the role of the trade unions in supporting their dreams and ideals;
- The trade unions need to get involved more in solving the youth’s problems;
- Maybe the youth can be seen as a vulnerable category, but certainly, the social solidarity represents the necessary condition which could eliminate these vulnerabilities.
Final conclusion: We do not have to prepare the youth’s path, but the youth for the path.