Tr@ck-in: public employment services tracking effectiveness to support rural neets

Description

We aim to deliver an evaluation model of the effectiveness of Public Employment Services (PES) tracking support types - digital, human-mediated, or mixed - in improving employability among rural NEETs aged 25-29. Our project is submitted under support Area 3 - Analysis and Research, based on interdependent management, engagement & dissemination, and scientific work packages to fulfill three contributions. We aim to broaden knowledge of the effects of employment initiatives targeting rural NEETs, by creating a cross-country model of how policies influence PES tracking deliverance. Another goal is to enlarge the capacity of evaluating effects of employment initiatives for NEETs in rural areas, by validating impact assessment protocols for the most replicable programs of on-the-ground PES tracking support types, considering overall and specific groups of NEETs. A further target is to increase transnational use of impact studies among policymakers and researchers, by supporting their participation in developing/incorporating evidence-based impact methods for PES tracking evaluation.

We address the Fund call vision by focusing on rural NEETs. These youths are ignored by research, hard to engage with, and challenged by multiple structural risk factors. We will concentrate on their vulnerabilities in the short-term by establishing a baseline for PES support types’ effectiveness in their employability indicators and, in the long-run, by setting an evaluation framework for effective PES tracking development.

The consortium will rely on a sound multidisciplinary, theoretical, and methodological approach, by concentrating on Baltic, South, and Southeastern States with disparate rural NEETs’ proportions and different degrees of PES digitalization, adding meaningful variability to comparative analyses. Our outputs will be streamed into a working group dedicated to PES tracking impact evaluation to tie in with a parallel initiative, the Rural NEET Youth Observatory, by 2024.