Background information

The lockdown of society caused by COVID-19 has left many academics unemployed. Especially the young academics have had more difficulty than usual finding their way into the job market. To help the young academics, Aarhus job center launches several “the way out of Corona”-initiatives for young academics.

Unemployment among young academics is not an unknown challenge in Aarhus, however, the lockdown of society has made it harder for the newly graduated students to get their first job.

The municipality of Aarhus argues that there is a need for new initiatives to prevent the increased unemployment among graduates from becoming a long-term problem. The new initiatives are primarily oriented towards small and medium sized enterprises.

The initiatives were implemented during the spring and summer of 2021 and should be up and running concurrently with the new year of graduates.

Content of measure

The new initiatives include:

• A collaboration with the University of Aarhus and Erhverv Aarhus about establishing a trainee-network, with the aim of making it more attractive for the small and medium sized enterprises to hire newly graduated candidates.
• A campaign where Aarhus job center investigate potential job possibilities for young academics by talking to 170 small and medium sized enterprises. The graduates that are looking for new jobs will, based on these conversations, be offered coffee meetings with relevant enterprises, and be offered help and preparation for the meetings through virtual workshops.
• Virtual visits at enterprises which are relevant to the six AC-masters within the banking area. The aim is to market the possibility of hiring a highly educated candidate and subsequently match the candidates with tailored jobs, internships and wage subsidy.
• A collaboration with the Academics unemployment insurance fund to establish 50-75 graduate procedures in small and medium sized enterprises for graduates.
• Based on the good effects from JOB BootCamp 2020, Job center Aarhus, in collaboration with private and public actors in Aarhus, is reiterating the success in September 2021. Through a number of industry-oriented job events, companies will have the opportunity to meet highly qualified graduates from 2020 and new graduates from 2021.

At the end of February 2021, there were more than 4,000 unemployed academics in Aarhus Municipality. At the same time in 2020, the number was just over 3,400, while in February 2019 there were just over 3,200 unemployed academics. Thus, there are currently 600-800 more unemployed academics than usual in Aarhus Municipality. The aim is to equalize the number of unemployed academics.

Use of measure

No information available yet.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers	SMEs	Youth (18-25)

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
Trade unions	Trade union

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Consulted	Unknown
Form	Any other form of consultation, institutionalised (as stable working groups or committees) or informal	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Only trade unions
• Main level of involvement: Regional or local level

Involvement

The Academics’ unemployment insurance fund (trade union) and Aarhus job center collaborated on creating the initiatives. Additional partners of relevance are the University of Aarhus and Erhverv Aarhus.

Views and reactions

The social partners are supportive of the initiatives.

Sources

• 12 April 2021: Ny stribe af tiltag skal afhjælpe corona-ledighed blandt unge akademikere (www.aarhus.dk)
• 24 September 2021: Business Aarhus