Telefónica Foundation
- The aim of the programme is to improve the digital skills and abilities of young people in the new labour market scenario.
- The programme trained 240,000 youths, both in Europe and Latin America, for the new reality of the labour market.
- 34% of Spanish youths aged between 16 and 29 are unemployed and in Europe, the youth unemployment rate is now 20.6%.
José María Sanz Magallón, Marianne Thyssen and Álvaro Retortillo.
Fundación Telefónica presented this week its Employability programme to the European Economic and Social Committee, at the conference “Tackling youth employability through innovative projects”. The event counted with the participation of Marianne Thyssen, commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility; José María Sanz Magallón, managing director of Fundación Telefónica; Álvaro Retortillo, director Social Innovation of Fundación Santa María la Real, and Pavel Trantina, president of the Section for Employment, Social Affairs and Citizenship of the European Economic and Social Committee .
The aim of the programme is to improve the digital skills and abilities of young people in the new labour market scenario, to give them more opportunities for employment and professional and personal development.
Sanz Magallón and Retortillo discussed how their respective institutions have tackled the new challenges in the sphere of employability and enterprise, and the excellent results of the Employability programme, specifically the “Employment Launch Pads” a project which is co-financed by the European Social Fund and implemented by both foundations. Sanz Magallón explained his pride and satisfaction at having developed and nurtured “Employment Launch Pads” along with Fundación Santa María La Real.
1. New employability of Fundación Telefónica
The youth unemployment situation in Spain is one of the country’s most worrying challenges. According to data from the Active Population Survey, 34% of Spanish youths aged between 16 and 29 are unemployed. And in Europe, according to the OTT study World Employment and Social Outlook 2016: Trends of Youth, the youth unemployment rate is now 20.6%.
The programme is based on two chief concepts: Employability for the digital society –which includes “Digital Employment” and “Employment Launch Pads”–. They consist of training young people in digital skills, in order to increase their employment possibilities, involving companies in the process to facilitate recruitment, along with Social Enterprise, training youths in the development of skills, required by the labour market, through social enterprise projects. Last year, the programme trained 240,000 youths, both in Europe and Latin America, for the new reality of the labour market.
2. Employment launch pads
The project “Employment Launch Pads”, developed by Fundación Telefónica and Fundación Santa María la Real since 2014. has achieved job placement of almost 61%. More than 4,000 unemployed people have taken part in around 200 launch pad sessions. Students strengthen their job-seeking skills through varied teams of unemployed people and a dynamic of mutual cooperation. The project is now operating in more than a hundred towns and cities in every Spanish region. Both Foundations will start-up 454 launch pads up to 2019, which will have an impact on 9,000 Spanish youths.
3. Another major project in the sphere of new employability: “Digital Employment”
The other new, major initiative, “Digital Employment”, aims to be a bridge between young people and technology companies. Through online and face-to-face training, we teach young people aged between 18 and 35 in new digital professions that are opening up in the labour market. These are completely free courses on Apps, Big Data, Videogames, Cybersecurity, Java, Liferay, Ruby on Rails and PHP. In just one year, 102,000 young people have signed up for online courses and 509 for face-to-face courses, with a resulting job placement rate of 76%.
