“We must be able to train people in the skills the productive fabric is demanding,” says the Minister of Employment, Fátima Báñez
The Minister of Employment and Social Security, Fátima Báñez, announced the renewal of the Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment Strategy for 2017-2020, a programme that features 100 measures aimed at providing guidance and training, and favouring entrepreneurship and employment among young people. The Minister stressed that the strategy, based on social dialogue, has helped bring together all the Autonomous Communities, the large Spanish city councils, and also civil society. “That was the first collective youth employment programme”, she stressed.
“The Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment Strategy helped boost the Youth Guarantee in the EU, and these two programmes, have provided many young people in our country more than 1.5 million opportunities. This is the way forward, working together towards a common goal: if young people want to have a future, they must have something today”, she added.
Promoting opportunities
The head of the Employment Ministry made these statements during the opening of the Codespa Foundation Conference ‘The Path towards Youth Employment. What Businesses can do’, where she stressed that the employment rate among young people is growing twice as fast as the general average, and has contributed to reducing youth unemployment by 15 %. However, the minister appealed to the need to continue working to favour opportunities as soon as possible.
Báñez wanted to highlight the assistance provided by the 1,000 entities that, through the Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment Strategy, have contributed to providing young people with opportunities. The head of the Employment Ministry stressed the importance of training and of a commitment to Dual Vocational Training because it is a sure way to favour employment and results in a high job integration rate. “The key is that we must be able to train people quickly in the skills that the productive fabric is demanding”.
Today, 24 % of businesses in Spain have difficulties finding workers with certain skills. Therefore, she stressed the importance of laying the foundations of a productive fabric that will gain in competitiveness and commit to innovation and digital transformation, as the key elements of future employment.
“We are now considering, in Europe, within the scope of the G-20 and the United Nations, the future of employment”. Over the last 10 years, employment in the technology and communications sectors grew in Europe twice as fast as routine employment for production lines. “We must not be afraid of this changing world, we must be capable of anticipating and adapting to the new productive fabric”, she said.
The presentation of the Codespa Report took place in Madrid, at the Espacio Fundación Telefónica. Experts and entities involved in youth employability, such as the Novia Salcedo Foundation, attended the conference. The event included two panels that discussed what businesses could do to alleviate youth unemployment. They studied strategic social action models and integrated business models.
