Youth Employment Services

Requesting countryProviding country
ArgentinaUnited States
Topics: 
EMPLOYMENT
Professional training and skills certification
Employment services
Youth employment
Employment policies and programs
Activity: 
On-site
Date: 
12/07/2009 to 12/09/2009
Description: 

The Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security (MTEySS) of Argentina has developed  the program “Youth with a More and Better Employmet” (Jóvenes con Más y Mejor Trabajo - JMMT) as its national employment program that addresses youth in a vulnerable situation. In an effort to improve the quality of this program, its director and two other officers from the MTEySS traveled to the United States to gather information on the employment programs developed with this country to respond to this segment of the population.
 
During the visit, the Argentinean delegation received valuable information on the different
employment programs for youth in greatest disadvantage situation such as YouthBuild, JobCorps and Youth Offender Program (designed for young offenders),  through meetings with the authorities of this programs and officers of the Youth Services Division of the Employment and Training Administration (ETA/USDOL). Furthermore, seeking to have a comprehensive view of the initiatives that are currently being carried out in the US, the Argentinean delegates held a meeting with representatives of the youth programs of the Ministries of Health and Education, among other institutions. These meetings, in which the program JMMT was also presented, were complemented with two valuable on-site visits to centers of JobCorps and YouthBuild.
 
The Final Report of this cooperation gathers the main lessons that the Argentinean delegation identified from the United States’ experience such as the notorious focalization of the programs, the importance of the follow-up and monitoring, the comprehensiveness with which the theme of vulnerable youth employability is approached, and the continuous creation of incentives to keep youth engaged in the program, among others.     
 
In words of the delegates, the main objectives were exceeded widely and some of the identified lessons can be replicated and adapted to the Argentinean context. In particular, the Final Report mentions the following next steps: improve the coordination with other state-institutions and civil society to deepen in a comprehensive understanding of the issue of vulnerable youth; design of a new strategy for approaching the productive sector; extend the service hours of the Employment Offices; create spaces for continuous and systematic training for the personnel in charge of the youth employment areas in the local employment offices, among other. 

Relevant documents: 
Status: 
Realized
Announcement number: 
3