Job Pathways Finland

Job Pathways Finland is a project which aims to develop and pilot new services and collaboration models to
encourage employment and entrepreneurship. To reach the aim the project mixes employment and education services in new ways. First, the project identifies the needs that business life levels at future expertise and seeks ways to respond to those needs. Identification is done through improved dialogue with employers. Second, the project identifies job applicants’ existing expertise and potential, options for development as well as support required for the transition phase from education to working life. The customer-oriented approach should result in more effective and focused services.

The project will be implemented in accordance with the Six City Strategy by the project consortium of Espoo, Helsinki, Oulu, Tampere and Turku municipalities as well as three universities of applied sciences (Tampere, Turku and Metropolia). Each city focuses on complementing its existing service pallet with customised actions. During the project, self-evaluation is done both by the consortium and individual partners by using a common evaluation matrix. Municipalities are facing a situation which will most likely change their future role in promoting business and providing employment services. Cities together with their stakeholders develop corresponding models to changing structures and seek new ways to meet the needs of the changing labour market and customers. The project highlights the method of co-creation in solving the bottlenecks of transition phases. The project also observes the model development from the preventive perspective to stop unemployment happening in the first place. Additional support will be offered to students at the stage of finishing their studies. This is done by integrating processes which have previously taken place in separate sectors of educational and employment services. The crucial point is to encourage customers/ target groups to become active agents. Furthermore, employees’ and job seekers’ participation in the development work is an important starting point for the project. One of the main themes is to improve the collaboration with business life. Sub-projects will run test pilots in order to gain better information on the market’s skills requirements for workers and businesses' recruitment needs.