Innovative career guidance to match skills demand and supply (part 1)

It seems simple: An important economic region; a main job portal shows 7300 vacancies; one of the urban areas in this region - 200.000 inhabitants - has an unemployment rate of 21%. The math is quickly made, a potential match..., but it is not that simple.

Rotterdam, The Netherlands; a large sea harbour, the newest port, Maasvlakte 2, recently recovered from the sea and built to become the most sustainable and innovative port in the world. In the coming decade it will offer some 12.000 extra jobs. In the urban area South Rotterdam, 32% of the children grow up in poverty, 39% have parents with no or low formal education; first and second generation migrants make up 74% of the population.

Each year 2000 young people from the area enter the labour market. Many have made career choices without a realistic idea about the type of work they could do. These youngsters cannot compete in the labour market and many remain unemployed.

Seven years ago, the municipality of Rotterdam together with a broad spectrum of public and private partners launched a large scale program with a time span of 20 years. Aim: raise the education level, labour participation and quality of housing of the inhabitants of South Rotterdam. In 2016 the program got EU support (from the Urban Innovative Action fund) to stimulate VET students to choose career paths in the Green Digital Economy and major growth sectors. The past 3-years, the BRIDGE project  has experimented on innovative career guidance developed by mentors, school directors, teachers and employers.

BRIDGE introduced two new elements:

First, a career and talent orientation programme that starts in primary school (age 9) and ends with the students’ entry to the labour market.

Result to date: all school boards have jointly decided that every student in South Rotterdam will be offered a full career orientation and guidance program. Career orientation and guidance has been included in the curricula from this school year 2019-2020. Each school compiles their own annual career guidance program using the website ‘’Gaan voor een baan!’’ (Go after a job! Dutch only).

Secondly, Science & Technology and learning methods based on exploration and design are incorporated in the school curricula and linked with career orientation and guidance.

Result to date: 16 schools are implementing S&T and new learning methods. This should grow to a minimum of 20 schools.

Employers offer a Career Start Guarantee to students who choose a relevant VET program, guaranteeing a job after the student graduates. A job guarantee was already available for the sectors maritime and engineering and for the entire region but youngsters in South Rotterdam did not make use of it. Some changes were made. A number of job guarantees are now reserved specifically for students from South Rotterdam and employers in other sectors such as healthcare and food have also started offering job guarantees. A permanent campaign targeted at the youngsters makes them aware of the possibilities of the Career Start Guarantee. These measures are paying off.  In the schoolyear 2017/2018, 346 students started a VET program with a job guarantee; 196 for the sectors maritime and engineering and 150 for healthcare. In that schoolyear a total of 472 Career Start Guarantees were available for South Rotterdam youth. In the current schoolyear 537 job guarantees are available for the sectors engineering, healthcare, maritime, food, construction and logistics. From 2020/2021, 600 guarantees per year will be made available.

In a next blog, I will talk about the role teachers and parents play in the BRIDGE project contributing to its anticipated success. A spoiler, it is not that simple!