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Description
Youth unemployment, together with NEET issues remain serious Europe-wide concern: in recent years youth unemployment and NEET rates were among the highest in Greece, Italy, Croatia, Cyprus, Portugal, Bulgaria and Romania. These challenges, together with the problems, associated with protracted temporary positions, involuntary part-time work and underemployment of young people in the tourism industry are in the focus of the project.
Thus, our aim is to support on a large-scale transnational basis, through innovative and exploratory activities, the sustainability of youth integration in the tourism labour market in the above mentioned countries, by creating conditions for NEETs’ employment and entrepreneurship in various forms of tourism, incl. alternative tourism.
As a result of our activities, lowered youth unemployment is achieved through increased understanding of and innovatively addressed NEETs’ tourism-related and social skills deficiencies and improved employability and entrepreneurial skills of the target groups. Youth participation in the tourism industry is being strengthened through a e-Support platform, job-placement mobilities spread all over the target countries, and increased opportunities for successful start-ups in the (alternative) tourism sector.
As of end of May 2021, more than 500 NEETs aged 25-29 have been included in the project skills’ upgrading activities implemented so far. In addition, over 110,000 relevant project stakeholders (local and regional authorities, public employment services, employers, HR recruitment organisations, social partners, funding institutions, social enterprises, networks, etc.) were made aware of our activities and achieved results.
Summary of project results
The NESET (NEETs’ Empowerment for Sustainable Employment in the Tourism sector) project, implemented in the period August 2018 – September 2021, aims at supporting on a large-scale transnational basis, through innovative and exploratory activities, the sustainability of youth integration in the tourism labour market in the involved beneficiary countries – Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Romania (with Iceland participating as an expertise country) – by creating conditions for NEETs’ employment and entrepreneurship in various forms of tourism, incl. alternative tourism.
The project’s main focus has been on the 25-29-year-old NEETs in the beneficiary countries. As a key foreseen outcome of the NESET project, lowered youth unemployment has been achieved through increased understanding of and innovatively addressed NEETs’ tourism-related and social skills deficiencies and improved employability and entrepreneurial skills of the target groups. Youth participation in the tourism industry has been strengthened through an e-Support platform, job-placement internships and increased opportunities for successful start-ups in the (alternative) tourism sector.
Despite the COVID-19 situation, as of end of the project more than 500 NEETs in the NESET beneficiary countries were involved in training activities through participation in training workshops making use of online platforms, such as Teams, Zoom, etc. and of face-to-face training sessions.
The preparation of the e-Support platform’s content enabled its usage in training workshop’s delivery, whereas training participants were also acquainted with its functionalities. The collection of a database of youth job-seekers, employers and labour market intermediaries in beneficiary countries greatly supported the introduction and piloting of the innovative approaches on lowering youth unemployment, related to job-placement internships and identification of promising business opportunities in the tourism industry.
Below, the most important numbers of the NESET achievements are presented:
- 2 Innovative approaches on lowering youth unemployment have been developed through elaboration of NESET e-Support Platform.
- Over 350 Low skilled unemployed and long-term unemployed young people aged 25-29 took part in the project''s training activities.
- Over 550 NEETs aged 25-29 involved in NESET youth empowerment activities.
- Over 180 thousand relevant project stakeholders were made aware of NESET activities.
Summary of bilateral results
As an expertise partner from Iceland, Einurd Ltd. has been responsible for the implementation of the following NESET project activities to the benefit of the NEETs in the beneficiary countries:elaboration of a methodology for the identification, collection, and description of good practices and success stories of sustainable youth employment/entrepreneurship in the tourism industry;- identification and collection of good practices and success stories in the above-mentioned field for Iceland;- coordination of the collection of good practices and success stories for the NESET partnership and compilation of a compendium of good practices as part of the training material elaborated within the project’s framework;- performance of an advisory role throughout project implementation in areas, where Einurd has high expertise, such as skills accreditation, vocational training, social inclusion, etc.;- active participation in transnational face-to-face and online partners’ meetings.The involvement of Einurd in the NESET project has brought invaluable insight into the partnership, associated with the highly-diversified tourism sector in the country, which offers sustainable employment opportunities, incl. for young people.