Paths towards summer jobs 2030 – Bringing young people and working life together

Paths towards summer jobs 2030 is a project funded by the European Social Fund (2017–2019), which helps to develop the Kesäduunaa campaign, to create a permanent summerjob path model and more broadly to promote the employment of young people of different ages in Southwest Finland. The project is implemented by Turku University of Applied Sciences and
City of Turku.

Goals:

The aim of the Paths towards summer jobs 2030 project is to strengthen young people’s working life skills. We are promoting the birth of a working life already since the end of the elementary school and we therefore want to contribute to preventing exclusion. The project utilizes the learn by teaching concept where a polytechnic or a high school student, who already has a working life experiences, tutors younger students in job search and provides peer support for job search. Most polytechnic students are already experienced job seekers who have accumulated much knowledge and experience on job seeking and working life. The older student can not only ethe young person in concrete job search, but also encourages and inspire the young to continue job search, despite the potential challenges.

Target groups:

The main target group for the project is young people between the ages of 15 and 29. Various measures are targeted at young people over the age of 18, but also as a target group, measures are also being undertaken among young people aged 15 to 18 at various educational levels and educational institutions.
The companies in Southwest Finland are also an essential target group. The project is looking for hidden workplaces especially in the area of SMEs that have traditionally not offered summer jobs. Surveying jobs are sought by student leaders in co-operation with Southwestern entrepreneurs.

The project not only strengthens the future position of these target groups in the labor market, but also promotes the ability of entrepreneurs to recruit young people in different lengths of work life such as summer jobs. Raising the skills of job searchers increases the labor market qualifications of young people and helps to reduce exclusion and youth unemployment by increasing interpersonal skills, communication and interaction skills, self-confidence and job-search initiative.