JobTown 2

JobTown 2 is a transnational knowledge-sharing Implementation Network, comprising seven city municipal authorities.

We work together - with local stakeholders - to develop innovative, practical approaches to tackling youth unemployment under the ERDF URBACT III Programme.

Youth unemployment is a major challenge for all our communities; without effective action, the failure of young people to enter the labour market has significant financial, social and personal costs.

These costs include loss of taxation and increased public costs in welfare benefits; the loss of talent and potential workers from the labour force, reducing the pool of available labour and affecting businesses’ ability to grow; individuals loss of identity, ambition and a stake in society, increasing alienation and, potentially, anti-social behaviour; young people losing their ability to earn, learn and have a positive, independent future for themselves and their families.

While the effects of unemployed young people are well known, the causes are different from place to place and from individual to individual; finding solutions that are affordable, that work, and have a lasting impact are proving very difficult to find.

By working together and sharing know-how, the JobTown 2 partners will develop new thinking, approaches and activities to tackle youth unemployment and share this knowledge widely within the URBACT community and globally.

Each Network partner will work with their local employers (private, public & third sectors), groups and communities, schools and colleges, to try to find new, practical, local approaches to tackle youth unemployment and to give young people better, brighter futures.

The results will be shared through Network meetings, events, conferences, publications, websites and ongoing contacts.

Within an Implementation network, the Operational Implementation Framework is a local output, specific to each city, produced within the URBACT Local Group. It is the final product that describes the challenges project partners have faced when implementing their plan, what approach was used to overcome them and the lessons learnt from the process. In a nutshell, this document includes the description of the context and specific barriers keeping cities to reach successful implementation, alongside the capabilities, tools, skills and methods that were developed and how they come together. At last, it captures the knowledge that the partners had either acquired or deemed as necessary throughout their URBACT journey, providing a consistent framework to tackle future projects.