Tour4Youth – Improving young people employment opportunities in the CB tourism, hospitality, and restaurant sectors

The labour-intensive tourism, hospitality, and restaurant sectors are one of the biggest employers in the CB regions. Their social role in accompanying young people into the labour market is crucial as the sectors create more jobs for young workers than others. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment among young people with a relevant degree exploded and school-to-work transitions started to take longer in these hardest hit sectors. These sectors are now at the heart of employment measures as new targeted actions are vital.

The objective of the Tour4Youth project is to improve employment opportunities of young people who have reduced competitiveness on CB labour market focusing on tourism, hospitality, and restaurant sectors. The main target groups are unemployed young people with a relevant degree, young people graduating with the risk of unemployment or dropping out their studies. The project ensures a smoother transition from education to work, provides opportunities to access jobs, also cross-borders, and helps young people to get a (first/international) job and work experience.

The project makes a fundamental change in youth employment in the selected sectors. Its main result is a concrete number (n=60) of young people with increased competitiveness on labour market. To achieve this, various labour market services are provided: 1) a training course in job seeking and career management, 2) labour market matchmaking events, and 3) short-time work schemes locally and cross-borders.

It is essential to promote the objectives jointly as CB region is a common job market and a coherent tourism destination. The novelty value lies in the project approach to provide individualised, holistic, and sector-specific support to the young in cross-border and multi-actor collaboration throughout their journey beyond the current standard procedures.