Job Market 4.0 – Challenges for European Work and Life Erasmus Project

Project Title

Job Market 4.0 – Challenges for European Work and Life

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Project Summary

Context/background of the project

In recent years the European world of work and consequently also the European job market have been influenced by new challenges such as globalization, youth unemployment and in particular digitalization, with the latter mostly referred to as Industry 4.0. In analogy to the concept of Industry 4.0 one has to see the major impact those developments have had on the job market. Therefore, in this project the participating schools spoke of the Job Market 4.0.

Objectives of the project

The project aimed to make the participants understand and reflect both the major historic devolopments in the job market still affecting us today and the current economic and technological changes on a pan-European level so they can mutually benefit from and succeed in that newly shaped and highly competitive job market by acquiring knowledge and competences as much as training e.g. high quality language, digital and social skills.
Thus the project tried to make a small contribution to make the EU’s 2020 Agenda to create jobs an even bigger success.

Number and profile of participants

The five countries and likewise the schools coming together in this project had very different socio-economic backgrounds regarding the level of industrialization, unemployment etc. Yet all schools were united in their long-standing efforts and commitment in preparing their students for the requirements of the job market.

Description of activities and the methodology used in carrying out the project

The project was split in three stages:

Stage I. Industrializations (19th century – second half of the 20th century)
Stage II. Current and future challenges: Globalization, Industry 4.0 and their impact on the job market
Stage III. Job Market 4.0 in five European countries

In a kind of group puzzle the participants collected and analyzed various materials in their own country leading to diverse products which they shared and compared in multinational mixed groups at the transnational meeting that came with every stage of the project. This process finally lead to new common results in line with the actual stages of the project which were then presented to the pupils and teachers back in the home countries and an even wider audience in the participating schools.
In addition, throughout the whole project the schools involved were in contact with more or less high profile employers and institutions, depending on the very different local economic possibilities, providing the participating pupils with high profile training in quality skills necessary for the current and future job market with a particular focus on digital skills. Those trainings took place both in national teams between project meetings and in mixed international groups when meetings took place.

The final results and the impact

– There was an increase of key knowledge as well as improvement of quality communicative, foreign language and digital PC skills required to master future challenges in the job market
– Europass certificates
– comparable products for an online E-Book exhibition for the common website for the dissemination of the results in the participating schools and their communities, thereby creating free teaching materials for other schools
– the results of a survey in all five European countries, asking local companies what problems and most of all school failings they see and have with their current applicants or apprentices
– an exemplary manual on how to access the job market in the five participating countries

The longer term benefits

The pupils improved and acquired key abilities and skills necessary to meet the challenges in a common European job market.
The manual mainly focuses on the present and future school-leavers, providing them with information, orientation and useful advice on how to apply in the five project countries. The skills and knowledge acquired in that process complement the respective career orientation concepts of the schools involved leading to a real pan-European benefit.
All schools have come to a better understanding of the challenges of the future job market and are therefore better equipped to prepare and train their students for the European job market.
Stakeholders such as companies have also benefitted by raising the interest of applicants from other European countries and by learning about the requirements of the institutional arrangement and the application procedures in other European countries. Moreover they have gained a closer relationship with schools.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 111870 Eur

Project Coordinator

Leonore Goldschmidt-Schule – IGS Mühlenberg & Country: DE

Project Partners

• LICEO ATTILIO BERTOLUCCI
• L.G.T. René Cassin
• Prva gimnazija Varazdin
• 119 Secondary School “Academician Mihail Arnaudov”