Labour market regulations, changes in working life and the importance of apprenticeship training: A long-term and comparative view on youth transition from school to work

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (8) ◽  
pp. 945-965 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Olofsson ◽  
Alexandru Panican
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Working Life ◽  
School To Work ◽  
Employment Protection ◽  
Entry Level ◽  
Apprenticeship Training ◽  
Employment Conditions ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Starting Point

What is the significance of regulations of job contracts and wages when it comes to young people’s access to labour market? This is an issue that has attracted and continues to attract a great deal of interest in both research and politics. Proposals for deregulated employment protection and reduced entry-level pay recur regularly in public debate. In our view it is incomprehensible how sectors of the labour market that are dominated by jobs with low productivity and unstable employment conditions could be expected to offer a permanent solution for the large group of young people who are currently finding it difficult to enter the labour market and reach an acceptable standard of living. Instead, the responses to the challenges facing young people in the labour market could involve training in the form of apprenticeships rather than more insecure jobs and/or lower pay. Essentially, our starting point is that apprenticeship training could provide a more accurate response to the challenges facing young people in working life. This response would not involve the costs in terms of increased social polarisation and increased social risks that may follow in the wake of an increasingly deregulated labour market.

scholarly journals Youth Labour Markets in Post-1984 New Zealand: Young People Negotiating School to Work Transitions

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Higgins ◽  
Janine Alfeld
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Young People ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Census Data ◽  
School To Work ◽  
Labour Markets ◽  
Clear Sense ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Market Trends ◽  
Reasonable Sense

This paper is part of a larger project exploring the school to post-school choices of New Zealand’s first post-1984 generation. In this paper we analyse census data relating to the employment of young people (aged 15-24 years) in two of the project’s sites, Southland and Auckland. We then discuss out participants’ perceptions of the labour market and find that these perceptions are broadly in line with general labour market trends, and that they incorporate a reasonable sense of the local opportunities for part time employment while at school. But participants lacked this ‘local literacy’ when considering future employment possibilities. That is, they lack a clear sense of engagement with ‘place’ in relation to their imagined working futures.

scholarly journals The German system of vocational education and training: challenges of gender, academisation and the integration of low-achieving youth

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-71
Author(s):  
Simone R Haasler
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Vocational Education ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Education And Training ◽  
Dual System ◽  
Vocational Education And Training ◽  
Apprenticeship Training ◽  
School Based ◽  
And Training

In Germany, the dual system of apprenticeship training has traditionally been very strong. The dominant position of the dual system, however, is being challenged by other training routes gaining significance, particularly tertiary education. This article investigates the extent to which this is leading to a restructuring of the dual system. Developments in school-based vocational programmes, trends of academisation and challenges deriving from qualifying low achievers are discussed. The growing significance of school-based programmes is linked to the gender impact of the vocational education and training (VET) system and the gender segmentation of the German labour market, while academisation reflects labour market demands for high skills. With dual study programmes and three and a half-year dual training, the dual system seeks to provide attractive training options for highly skilled young people. This, however, has made access to fully-qualifying vocational programmes very difficult for low-achieving young people, including migrants and refugees, thereby challenging the integration function of the German VET system.

scholarly journals De arbeidsmarktintegratie van jongeren in Europa verklaard

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marloes de Lange ◽  
Maurice Gesthuizen ◽  
Maarten H.J. Wolbers
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Market Integration ◽  
Employment Protection ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Labour Market Integration ◽  
Youth Labour Market ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Youth Labour

Youth labour market integration in Europe explained Youth labour market integration in Europe explained Young people in Europe face great difficulties nowadays when first entering the labour market. Unemployment and temporary employment are high among youth, although considerable differences in these figures exist between European countries. In this article, we study to what extent cyclical, structural and institutional factors explain cross-national variation in youth labour market integration. In addition, we examine to what degree educational differences exist in the impact of these macro characteristics. To answer these research questions, we use data on young people from 29 European countries who were interviewed in the European Social Survey of 2002, 2004, 2006 or 2008 and left day-time education in the period 1992-2008. The results of the empirical analysis first of all show that high unemployment prevent young people from a smooth integration in the labour market. In addition, economic globalization has a positive effect on youth labour market integration. We also demonstrated that young people experience less difficulties with labour market integration as the educational system is more vocational specific. Higher educated in particular profit from the positive effect of the vocational specificity of the educational system. Finally, as the employment protection legislation of incumbent workers is stricter, young people experience more difficulties with labour market integration, especially higher educated youth.

scholarly journals Going across Europe for an apprenticeship? A factorial survey experiment on employers’ hiring preferences in Germany

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Protsch ◽  
Heike Solga
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Ethnic Disparities ◽  
Youth Unemployment ◽  
School To Work ◽  
Factorial Survey ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Apprenticeship Training ◽  
The Social ◽  
Policy Shift

Owing to the recent recession, the German apprenticeship model is once again praised for smoothing out school-to-work transitions. In line with the social policy shift of favouring education as a key means to combat youth unemployment, European Union (EU) recommendations and German national policies encourage young Southern and Eastern EU citizens to apply for apprenticeship training abroad. Yet, young people wanting to go abroad are not only mobile young people but also immigrants. Given the prevalence of ethnic disparities in the German apprenticeship system, the question arises whether employers would be willing to hire these newcomers. Using a factorial survey experiment, we investigate how employers rate applications from Spanish newcomers compared to those from young immigrant descendants of Spanish origin. The results indicate that newcomers are substantially less preferred than immigrant descendants born in Germany. Employers’ expectations about newcomers’ language skills and employers’ interest in training for their own skilled labour force are key barriers to policies promoting apprenticeships abroad.

scholarly journals School-to-work transitions support: ‘cruel optimism’ for young people in ‘the state of insecurity’

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-188
Author(s):  
Charlotte Chadderton
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
School To Work ◽  
The State ◽  
School Based ◽  
Work Transitions ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Individual

In this paper, I argue that current arrangements for school-to-work transitions support in England, now school-based, are designed to contribute towards ensuring the consent of the population for what I refer to as the ‘state of insecurity’ (Lorey, 2015): the neoliberal relationship between the individual and the state in which insecurity is promoted as freedom. Based on an analysis of policy, the paper argues that the government careers strategy for young people aims to contribute to shaping the precarious subjects which inhabit the state of insecurity, by encouraging them to internalise neoliberal values around freedom and individualism which accompany governmental precarisation. Drawing also on the work of Judith Butler (2011), I suggest that throughout the careers strategy, neoliberalism functions as performative or hegemonic norm which is cited to constitute notions of ‘good’ or ‘normal’ labour market arrangements, aspirations and selves. I suggest that this strategy is an example of Berlant's (2011) ‘cruel optimism’, which constitutes a fantasy of a ‘good life’ which is in fact likely to be unattainable to many young people, especially the more disadvantaged.

Ordinary Lives: ‘Typical Stories’ of Girls’ Transitions in the 1960s and the 1980s

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Goodwin ◽  
Henrietta O'connor
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Young People ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
School To Work ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Historic Data ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Adult Roles

Since 2000 we have been engaged in restudies of transitions projects from the 1960s and 1980s and we have used historic data to problematise past experiences of school to work to question assumptions around complexity and linearity. Yet, in our own analyses, we have perhaps followed too closely the dominant transition discourses, concentrating only on those young people for whom transitions were not straightforward thus privileging the non-linear and complex at the expense of those who had largely unremarkable education and early work experiences. In doing so we have missed important lessons located in the life stories of the previously ‘ordinary kids’ in these past studies. In this paper, we seek to build upon the work of Roberts (2011) and France (2007) , by returning to our own school to work restudies with two main aims in mind. First, we consider the emergent notions of ‘ordinary’ and ‘unspectacular’ transitions in the context of past studies of youth. We reflect critically on the concept of the ‘ordinary’ and consider ‘typicality’ as an alternative. Second, we use data, in the form of eight vignettes, from Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962) and Young Adults in the Labour Market (1983), to develop our understanding of the ordinary or typical in the lived realities of the transitions of girls in one labour market (Leicester) from the 1960s and 1980s. We conclude the paper by reflecting upon what lessons can be learnt from those who made seemingly ordinary transitions during past periods of economic change and transformation.

scholarly journals Self-efficacy beliefs of youth entering the labour market

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 193-214
Author(s):  
Paweł Kot ◽  
Bohdan Rożnowski
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Young People ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Efficacy Beliefs ◽  
School To Work ◽  
Work Transition ◽  
Life Roles

Abstract This article presents the psychological meaning of school-to-work transition. Transition to taking up new social roles entails numerous difficulties, and that is why young people see it as a crisis point. According to researchers one of the predictors of effective transition to the labour market is self-efficacy. This article presents the two obtaining approaches to the psychology of self-efficacy beliefs. Both specific and generalized self-efficacy belief are good predictors of human behaviour, which has been repeatedly confirmed in the studies (main overview in this article). The authors of this compilation have integrated the two dominating approaches into one theoretical model, taking account of the three levels of generality proposed by Rosch. By doing that, a theoretical model has been created which allows for organising self-efficacy beliefs relating to life roles into a three-level hierarchical structure.

scholarly journals Earning Not Learning? An Assessment of Young People in the Jobs without Training (JWT) Group

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Maguire ◽  
Thomas Spielhofer ◽  
Sarah Golden
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Education And Training ◽  
Training And Development ◽  
Training Needs ◽  
School To Work ◽  
Young Workers ◽  
Compulsory Schooling ◽  
Mass Participation ◽  
And Training

In recent years, mass participation in post-16 education and training in England has led to a diminishing understanding about young people who leave education at the end of compulsory schooling to enter ‘jobs without training’ (JWT). Drawing on data from three recent studies, this article argues that the JWT group is not homogeneous in its composition. Similar findings led to the development of a common typology across all three studies to define young people's position in the labour market, their motivations and aspirations, and their access to training and development. It concludes with a series of recommendations for addressing the deficit in knowledge about the composition of the JWT group, and the learning and training needs of young workers. This discussion is set in the context of the implementation of the Raising of the Participation Age (RPA) in England for all 17-year olds from 2013 and for all 18-year olds from 2015, although within the Coalition Government's current proposals, its delivery will lack any form of immediate enforcement. Therefore, unless young workers and their employers are committed to the acquisition of accredited qualifications, RPA delivery will be seriously undermined and intervention to support school to work transitions among the JWT group will remain negligible.

scholarly journals Exploring Vocational Education Students’ Visions of a Successful Transition to Working Life from the Perspective of Societal Belonging

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Ågren
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Vocational Education ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Vocational Students ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Successful Transition ◽  
Paid Employment ◽  
Decent Life ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe emphasis on paid employment is strong in Finnish vocational education. However, the world of work is changing and becoming more insecure. Many researchers have expressed concern about the impact of these uncertainties on employment opportunities for young people. This paper discusses vocational education students’ possibilities for societal belonging in their transition to the changing labour market in Finland. It explores the students’ visions of a successful transition to working life and a decent life after this transition. The qualitative data were collected by organising six functional workshops for vocational students (58 participants). In the conclusion, the paper argues that in the vocational students’ visions, paid employment constitutes an important definer of their societal belonging. Furthermore, it demonstrates how strongly the traditional ideals of worker-citizenship fostered in vocational education influence the meanings the second- and third-year students ascribe to societal belonging. The paper suggests that this issue needs to be critically examined in view of the changing labour market. The question is whether vocational training is able to guarantee graduating young people a realistic opportunity to build their belonging to society while at the same time to responding to the needs of the labour market.

scholarly journals Does an entrepreneurial spirit animate fresh graduates in their work-seeking during uncertain times?

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Luigi Fabbris ◽  
Manuela Scioni
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
School To Work ◽  
Veneto Region ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
School To Work Transition ◽  
Entrepreneurial Spirit ◽  
Work Transition

The labour market is becoming harder and harder even for graduates. The economic difficulties added by Covid-19 restrictions worsened the graduates’ employability. In our opinion, public authorities should intervene to soften the school-to-work transition and graduates should become more entrepreneurial to overcome own market difficulties. We realised a survey on graduates from Padua University, the largest university in the Veneto region, Italy. In this survey, among other things, the entrepreneurial spirit of graduates was investigated. This spirit is intended as both the propensity to undertake an own business and the skill to find own ways and resources to overcome the possible difficulties while searching for a job either as employee or self-employed. It emerged that the propensity to start an own business concerns only a bunch of fresh graduates and that the capacity to implement personality resources is large among young people but remains unexplored because of cultural and contingent reasons.

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