Rotterdam, Netherlands—
In September 2020, the municipality of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, started giving out training vouchers to residents who were facing economic and labour market challenges.
These vouchers could be used to pay for courses and training in professional areas with high demand, given the labour market changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the purpose of the training vouchers was to connect those in need of jobs to economic sectors in need of personnel, by enabling jobseekers to gain relevant training and education. The project was launched in September 2020 through the Rotterdam Schooling Fund Project and the vouchers paid for courses and training in professional areas with high demand, especially given the changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many businesses shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to job cuts. Jobseekers and young people with limited qualifications, were most affected. In addition, certain industries such as tourism and hospitality recorded high job losses due to social distancing measures. Conversely, industries such as healthcare, IT and technology firms were in urgent need of qualified people. In this labour market situation, the Rotterdam Schooling Fund sought to connect those in need of jobs to sectors in need of personnel, by enabling jobseekers to gain relevant training and education. Rotterdam was targeting residents who were facing economic challenges such as those unemployed but willing to work and learn, people who are on social security benefits and people whose unemployment benefits expire within three months. The measures were intended for young people who have obtained MBO (secondary vocational education) diplomas in 2020, in industries where there were no vacancies due to Covid-19. More specifically:
Young individuals were able to claim a voucher worth EUR 2 500 euros for training, retraining, or further training up to the MBO 4 level (Middle Management in Vocational Education or Training, precedes Higher education).
Vouchers were able to be claimed from September 2020. To increase residents’ chances of gaining employment and to help the city of Rotterdam become more economically resilient.
Rotterdam’s goal was to expand the program to over 20 000 vouchers until 2024, to make the community more resilient to crises such as Covid-19.
Vouchers were to be used to up-skill or re-skill youth into high-demand sectors such as health care or ICT.
Despite the lifting of the COVID-19 measures and improvement of the labour market situation in Rotterdam, the programme is still an active and integral part of the youth labour market activation policy in Rotterdam. The current focus has, however, shifted from fighting unemployment due to COVID-19 measures, to combating shortages and securing sustainable career paths for youth. Students utilising the voucher system are learning much sought-after skills and transitioning into roles such as healthcare workers, or IT technicians.
The current tight labour markets offer unique opportunities for vocational education and training centres and public employment services. Currently, there are many sectors, covering various skill levels in which youth can follow education with relatively high job guarantees and decent pay in OECD countries. The Rotterdam Retraining vouchers are an incentive to push youth towards these sectors with good labour market prospects solving issues of unemployment and shortages at the same time.
OECD (2022), "Future-proofing adult learning systems in cities and regions: A policy manual for local governments", OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Papers, No. 2022/03, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/11fa26cc-en.
