The Traineeland team from Romania aims to address high youth unemployment through an online platform providing nationwide internships, coaching, and information on opportunities. With youth unemployment around 23% in Romania and many graduates lacking experience, the platform will connect students and unemployed youth with internships, development programs, and recruiters. Benefits include open merit-based matching of applicants to opportunities across Romania, coaching for applicants, and networking among affected youth. The team aims to involve 100-200 unemployed people in the first year, contributing to lowering unemployment while offering young people choices and support to find suitable opportunities.

1. The Traineeland
Team name: YOUTHPACT!
•Alexandra Crineanu
•Iulia Baidac
•Luisa Bunescu
Country: ROMANIA

2. Experience and facts…
Youth unemployment in Romania is a real and serious
problem, as shown by statistics in the third quarter of
2013 - 23%, the lowest rate among EU members in
the same quarter being in Germany - 8.1%
As of 2011 the GDP/capita in PPS was 49 in Romania,
from the EU countries only Bulgaria ranking below with 46,
these figures make of Romania a laggard in terms of
welfare
Finally, in January 2013 the minimum wage in Romania
was set to 157.26 Euro the lowest from all EU Member
States; given the amount of the minimum wage in our
country, we are being quite often accused of the so-called
”social dumping”

3. Romania is politically and economically too
centralized around Bucharest fact that lowers
the chances for youngsters residing outside
the capital city to find work opportunities
While Bucharest has become a major
outsourcing hub, alone multinational
companies cannot absorb all sociology,
economics and humanities graduates, many
of them ending up receiving social transfers
from the state
68.000 young Romanians apply yearly for
jobs abroad mainly for Western and Northern
European countries such as Norway, Germany,
The Netherlands, etc. Their reasons are various:
better living standards, great facilities to apply
their knowledge and diversified market demand

4. The reasons of having high unemployment rates lie in the difficult way of
obtaining relevant skills and entry-level work experience due to nepotism,
overall weak economic environment and inadequate curricula. All
these trigger the following:
• Lack of practical experience
1.
• Lack of pertinent information and coaching
throughout educational and learning path
2.
• Restrained market demand: there is a mismatch
between the demand on the domestic labor
3. market and the youth’s chosen academic track

5. Solution: First nationwide internship and coaching online platform
This will be a platform enabling students and
unemployed youth to find
 nationwide internships (both paid and
unpaid)
Our online platform will  information about opportunities for personal
approach two of the most development offered by both private and public
important causes of institutions
unemployment in Romania:  international activities
lack of entry-level work We will post existing internships and practical
experience and lack of activities but we will also
information about formal and
non-formal education contact public and private enterprises to
activities among youth. raise internships around the country
act as first recruiter for our partners and as
consultants for our unemployed youth
connect private and public institutions with
young people looking for jobs

6. More than just a simple online
platform..
Benefits for employers:
 The platform will act as first-time recruiter and there will be no costs of
preselecting applicants for our partners; therefore this will bring high
benefits to private and public institutions willing to offer internships and jobs
through our platform
The funds for this project will be accessed from institutions willing to
support initiatives that fight against unemployment, from donations or
other grants but no fees will be imposed to our partners or
unemployed youth
 Our partners will benefit from qualified labor force and also from applicants
that best match the requirements of the advertised internships
 They will have their contribution towards sustainable development of society

7. More than just a simple online
platform..
Benefits for unemployed youth:
 The platform will be an example of addressing nepotism as the selection
of applicants will be open and merit based
 Opportunities for non-formal education such as the Youth in Action
program and similar programs will be promoted to our target group which
will contribute to personal and professional development
 We will facilitate the creation of a local networking where affected people
can share experience and learn from best practices thus generating a
youth driven solution platform
 There will always be a consultant or coach for every unemployed
youngster that will ask for further information about job opportunities,
personal or professional development

8. Planned results and outcomes:
 The team will spend 20 h/week on the solution and we will reach in the
first year of implementing the platform approximately 700 - 1000 affected
people
 The platform and the activities to support its existence will be
continued for undefined life span
 In the first year of implementation we will involve approximately 100-
200 unemployed people which means that we will contribute with small
but consequential steps to lower the unemployment rate
 We will offer young people choices to find the most suitable
internships, we will raise youngsters’ self esteem by dedicating our
time to provide coaching and individualized feedback for their
application and we will facilitate communication among people with
similar concerns that could come up with possible solutions to their
issues

9. References:
Youth unemployment: http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu
Current Purchase Parity Standard across EU : http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu
Minimum wage: http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu
Picture 1: http://www.mvymca.org
Picture 2: nrrsl.blogspot.com
Picture 3: blog.ncpad.org