Matching People to Work opportunities in South-East (Municipality & Community Perspectives)

Event 1: Radio Programme

Topic: Matching People to Work opportunities in South-East

(Municipality & Community Perspectives)

Activity Date: Monday, 17 September 2018

Activity description:

Quite often there is the talk about matching people to job opportunities. At the end

of the day, you will find out that this matching does not always work out perfectly

as expected. It becomes important from a more pragmatic angle to look at the

mechanisms and policies being used for this matching, vis-a-vis the targeted and

actual results.

Bijlmer Centrum is one of the residential neighbourhoods of Amsterdam Southeast

with some unique statistics:

• Bijlmer Center is an area with relatively many young people: 20% of the

population is younger than 18 years;

• There is a lot of poverty too; 38% of the young live in a households with

minimum income compared with the Amsterdam average of 21%. Again, 24% of

those live in long-term poverty (14% for Amsterdam).

• The percentage of low-skilled school leavers (though declining) is far above the

Amsterdam average.

In this broadcast we tried to look at how best to match people living in this part of

our city to available job opportunities. Our guests have the background as well as

the experience to help us make sense of this topic.

Our guest today are: (1) Mrs. Nenita la Rose a council member in the Amsterdam

city council for the PvdA party ;

Guest(s) profile:

(1) Mrs. Nenita la Rose (PvdA) councillor, Amsterdam municipality

(2) Mr. Nelson Matthew, entrepreneur, Ad Matthews Job agency in Amstelveen

(https://www.admathews.com/)

Audience: + 500+/- listeners.

Highlights

Q. What is your reasonable assessment of the job market situation for the migrant

population in the country generally and for Amsterdam Southeast in particular?

A. Job opportunities currently growing but there is a mismatch of

qualifications with vacancies.

In Southeast there are people unable to participate for various reasons; low-

income earners, flex-temporary workers mainly, 50-plussers, the youth. In

total 98,000 are jobless in Amsterdam (12% of Amsterdammers), 40,000

persons are on social benefits, 24,000 on WW (recently lost jobs).

Labour discrimination is a good part of the problem. It’s important to give

people a chance with tutoring, or some training to help fit people into

vacancies.

Employers don’t want to invest time and money in training of prospective

employees. That mindset may be changing now among some employers.

Q. Southeast has had a reputation for being under-privileged and impoverished

with higher unemployment rates in contrast with the other boroughs of

Amsterdam. Do you think this is a result the way this was planned from the

beginning and has anything changed since?

A. Southeast appears to be over-represented in the multicultural mix. The

job discrimination is apparently a factor although it is hard to nail it down.

The use of network has been a factor in facilitating job search. Most

migrants do appear not to the right networks.

Q. How does job match process work in practice?

A. At our agency we don’t judge a candidate first based on a CV; first we

invite the person before we ask for the CV. We look out for a motivated

candidate and one who will work for the long term.

Q. Do job hunters work as Mr. Matthew’s job agency, supporting job-

seekers?

A. The municipality may be should learn from Mr. Matthew in serving

candidates better.

Job hunters who do support candidates well may not be fit for their

functions.

Q. Does the municipality of Amsterdam have customized plan to help

Southeast better improve the job and poverty situation?

A.

Concluding remarks

Give people the opportunities the seek. Candidates should not give up, use your

network to your advantage.