Quality Framework for Traineeships - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 88/1

Young people have been hit particularly hard during the crisis. Youth unemployment rates have reached historical peaks in the past years in several Member States, without any sign of decrease in the short term. Fostering the employability and productivity of young people is key to bringing them onto the labour market.

A smooth transition from education to employment is crucial for enhancing the chances of young people on the labour market. Improving young people's education and facilitating their transition to employment are necessary for achieving the Europe 2020 headline target of aiming to reach a 75 % employment rate of women and men aged 20-64 by 2020. Guideline 8 on the employment policies of the Member States calls on the Member States to enact schemes to help young people and in particular those not in employment, education or training find initial employment, job experience, or further education and training opportunities, including apprenticeships, and to intervene rapidly when young people become unemployed (1).

Over the past two decades, traineeships have become an important entry point into the labour market.

Socio-economic costs arise if traineeships, particularly repeated ones, replace regular employment, notably entry-level positions usually offered to trainees. Moreover, low-quality traineeships, especially those with little learning content, do not lead to significant productivity gains nor do they entail positive signalling effects. Social costs can also arise in connection with unpaid traineeships that may limit the career opportunities of those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

There is evidence that links exist between the quality of the traineeship and the employment outcome. The value of traineeships in easing the transition to employment depends on their quality in terms of learning content and working conditions. Quality traineeships bring direct productivity benefits, improve labour market matching and promote mobility, notably by decreasing search and matching costs both for enterprises and for trainees.

The Council Recommendation on establishing a Youth Guarantee (2) invites Member States to ensure that all young people up to the age of 25 years receive a good-quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education.

Various studies and surveys have found that quality problems affect a significant share of traineeships, most particularly those where no educational or training institution is directly responsible for the learning content and the working conditions of the traineeship.

Evidence shows that a significant number of trainees are simply asked to do menial tasks. A quality traineeship must also offer a solid and meaningful learning content. This means, inter alia, the identification of the specific skills to be acquired, supervision and mentoring of the trainee, and monitoring of his/her progress.

Problems have also been identified as regards working conditions, e.g. long working hours, lack of social security coverage, the presence of health and safety or occupational risks, little or no remuneration and/or compensation, a lack of clarity on the applicable legal regimes, and the excessively...