- Funding Programme
- Year
- 2021
Tackling long-term unemployment through innovative approaches
The European Commission provided technical support to le Forem, the Walloon Public Employment Service, to develop a dedicated and well-tailored policy approach to tackle long-term unemployment (LTU) in Wallonia, inspired by innovative solutions adopted by other European countries.
Context
Long-term unemployment and more generally long-term job deprivation is a very important problem in Wallonia. In September 2020, 56.8 % of the unemployed jobseekers registered with le Forem, the Walloon Public Employment Service (119,869) had been unemployed for more than one year, according to official data. 80,092 had been unemployed for more than two years. Existing measures (including employment aids, social economy interventions, social welfare and career transition programmes, career guidance and training services) have a limited ability to reach certain target groups and particularly those who, discouraged and completely out of work, do not even apply to receive support from the Public Employment Services. Therefore, the regional authorities are looking to improve policies to reach the long-term unemployed (LTU) through innovative solutions.
Support delivered
Technical support was delivered through the following outputs: (i) Report on national and international measures to support the labour market integration of long-term unemployed individuals; (ii) Report including recommendations on innovative measures for the labour market integration of long-term unemployed individuals in Wallonia; (iii) Consultations with regional stakeholders and organisation of peer-learning events with EU participants; (iv) Recommendations to improve the labour market integration of the LTU in Wallonia, based on innovative approaches from across the EU at large; (v) Support to design and carry out a pilot, to test the feasibility of proposed measures aimed at improving the labour market integration of the LTU in Wallonia.
Results achieved
The project produced a full pilot implementation roadmap, to test the feasibility of innovative measures aimed at improving the labour market integration of the long-term unemployed. Technical support to implement the pilot was further provided, to test the added-value and effectiveness of the proposed measures, at the local level in Wallonia. It is expected that the Walloon authorities will make use of these recommendations to enhance the portfolio of services available to tackle long-term unemployment.
More about the project
You can read the documents related to the project here: