10th edition (2018): "Early School Leaving and the labor market"

• Why are there companies that can’t find the employees they need, despite the high unemployment rate?
• What do businesspeople do to find the employees they need? 
• How can early school leaving be reduced and untrained insertion into the labor market be prevented?
• What can be done, on the part of the business world, to reduce early school leaving? 
• Is there a relationship between lack of education and the unemployment rate for those over 45 years old?

Young people who leave school prematurely are more likely to have lower incomes or be unemployed, and it is predicted that the future demand for skills will make only 1 in 10 jobs available for this profile. According to several international reports, early school leaving (ESL) leads to a loss not only of individual opportunities, but also of economic and social potential, thus jeopardizing a country’s possibilities for socioeconomic development while also calling into question the very foundations of social cohesion.

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Bibliography

“Reducing early school leaving in the EU”, European Parliament (2011)

Why is FemCAT interested in ESL?

In present-day Catalonia, early school leavers represent 17.1% (18.2% in Spain) of the total number of young people between 18 and 24 years of age, meaning that they have obtained, at most, a degree for the first stage of secondary education (ESO) but have not furthered their studies with any formal training. While it’s true that this figure is certainly lower than where it stood in 2008, at 32.2%, it remains far from the EU average of 10% (although it does come close to the 2020 goal of 15%, established for Spain by the EU).

The widespread consensus is that the origin of early school leaving resides primarily in the formal education system. A significant part of the phenomenon can be attributed to the system’s rigidity and its need to accommodate increasing diversity. However, there are other factors at play that are linked to the labor market and that—especially in certain regions—contribute to early school leaving (for example, in areas with high tourist activity) because they make it more appealing for young people to earn money than to continue their education in a system that does feature sufficiently attractive training opportunities.

Who is the Forum addressed to?

Businesspeople in Catalonia (both those who collaborate in vocational training programs and ESL prevention and those who do not; and those who have identified present or future staff shortages in their sector); human resources managers; representatives from educational centers that may or may not participate in vocational training programs; political decision makers and public administration officials.