EFFECTIVE JOB ORIENTATION SUPPORT BY

Background According to The Updated OECD Youth Action Plan successful engagement of young people in the labour market and society is crucial not only for their own personal well-being and economic prospects but also for overall economic growth and social cohesion. Factors other than age affect their needs and vulnerability, including the country and region in which they live, as well as their age and gender; educational attainment; geographical location; family status and income; disability/medical condition; unemployment history; and access to transport conditions. However, in all countries, disadvantaged young people face an increased risk of high and persistent unemployment, poor quality jobs when they do find work, and a high risk of social exclusion. Specific attention to these groups is needed to ensure they receive the support they need to thrive in life. At the global level, the labour force participation rates of youth (ages 15-24) tend to decline. The “Global Employment Trends for Youth” report released by the ILO in March 2020 showed that while the youth population increased from 1 billion to 1.3 billion in 1999-2019, the size of youth in active labour markets receded to 497 million from 568 million. Especially, the global economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic has created even greater challenges for youth. Young people are facing the risk of early school leaving or the risk of being out of the education, and many of them find that the only work open to them involves poor working conditions and low wages. They suffer disproportionately from growing inequalities and decreasing labour force. The most common variables leading the risk of being youth with disadvantaged background: age and gender; educational attainment; geographical location; family status and income; disability/medical condition; unemployment history; and access to transport. Turkey’s late 2018 economic recession not only ended a period of increasing employment levels but also slashed more than 700,000 jobs. These losses affected young people (15-24) in terms of a tougher labour market and can be measured by increases in their NEET rate (21.9 to 23.5 per cent, 2018-2019) and unemployment rate (20.3 to 25.4 per cent, 2018-2019. Just when the economy had started growing again the COVID-19 pandemic arrived to Turkey bringing the NEET rate further up to 27.1 per cent as of November 2020. The “Youth and COVID-19: Access to Decent Jobs Amid the Pandemic” report conducted in Turkey (available below) notes that 77% of the young respondents from Turkey and 61% of young refugee respondents report that COVID-19 has adversely affected their job search. The youth further report that available jobs have diminished, and negative responses to their job applications have increased. Moreover, since 2010, youth participation in the labour market has been one of the main concerned issues in the EU policy agenda.1 Youth unemployment is more affected by the fluctuations in economic activity than adult unemployment thus it has gained a great importance as the labour market force in both the developed and the developing countries since the global recession leading to a significant increase in youth unemployment rates. In Turkey, youth labour market is characterized by high levels of unemployment and inactivity. The Effective Job Orientation Support By Visualizing Potentials project intends to provide young people having disadvantaged background with opportunities to improve their key competences through non-formal learning methodologies, in order to boost their employability and participation in society as strongly emphasised by the 2020 Council Recommendation framed by the European Commission. The project consortium consists of the