NordFokus

Closed

The project will improve opportunities for young people with vocational education and training to find relevant internships in Denmark, Norway and Sweden while solving recruitment challenges for employers in the region. All countries in the project geography face the challenge, where fewer and fewer young people opt for vocational education, which in particular post-Covid creates challenges for employers to recruit qualified labour. By cooperating across borders, the project will solve the competency challenges without creating competition between countries. In Denmark in particular, discussion about the shortage of skilled labour has filled a lot in recent years, and labour shortages are expected to have serious economic consequences in the future. The project will help vocational education and training to create more attractive conditions and opportunities, thereby contributing to ensuring proper competences in the region in line with PO 4. The project will be working on two main challenges 1) Education should be better at cooperating cross-border 2) Make it easier for employers to find relevant candidates across borders while equipping candidates to act in a borderless labour market Organisationally, the project is tripartite, but with the primary aim of developing an internship model that makes it simple for young people to undertake cross-border internships. The first part of the project is an external analysis and mapping of opportunities and challenges for cross-border internships. The analysis is used as a starting point for the second part of the project, which focuses on developing a Nordic internship model for young people on vocational education and training. The project will partly help to find relevant internships that suit the requirements of students and educational institutions, partly to prepare students for their internship period as well as help with practical challenges associated with moving to another country. The final part of the project is aimed at students who are either at the end of their education or who are recent graduates and have not yet come to work. Through both career events and individual support, the project helps expand the job search to include jobs in Norway, Denmark and Sweden. At the same time, the project’s partners will play key roles in supporting the project participants on questions about the Nordic labour market. The participants will be assisted in establishing themselves in the Nordic labour market and equip them to act in a cross-border context. The project builds on experiences from the previous Interreg projects Nordisk Jobstart+ and Nordisk Job Solution, but with a brand new target group — young people with vocational education and training. A general experience from the previous projects as well as the Bridge Builder Project Job in the North is that international internship is a high-profile area in the programmes, as well as is demanded politically and from the business community. An experience from the Brobuilder project is that educational institutions focus on a greater effort to help their students complete foreign internships, but often lack resources/contacts. Despite existing support programmes to promote internships abroad, students and other actors often lack knowledge of these opportunities. In the Brobuilder project, we have confirmed that the younger target group in particular needs extra support and persuasion before they dare to take the step and try out abroad in the form of internships or jobs. Young people do not have the same courage or motivation to try abroad. The partnership consists initially of actors from educational institutions and the aim is to create a network of actors in the three countries that together will create a Scandinavian internship model that allows more young people to undertake cross-border internships. At the same time, the project includes actors from social partner organisations that together with other partners will facilitate the transition from education to the labour market.

Medium