Virginia Barcones knows the work of young people who benefit from the TandEM Program at the Construction Labor Foundation

• The plan combines training and employment for one year to offer job opportunities in the field of masonry • Managed by the Public Service of State Employment, the TanDEM Program develops 12 training projects in Castilla y León in which young people between 16 and 29 years of age work • 374 young people from Castilla y León have a job contract through the TandEM, First Experience and Research programs

September 28, 2023.- The Government delegate in Castilla y León, Virginia Barcones, has visited the young people who benefit from the TanDEM Program and whose training is being developed by the Construction Labor Foundation. In total, 374 young people from Castilla y León between the ages of 16 and 29 who have an employment contract through the TandEM, First Experience and Research programs.

Virginia Barcones has been accompanied by the president of the Construction Labor Foundation, Javier Joaquín Vega Corrales, the provincial director of the State Public Employment Service, Francisco José de Lucas Plaza, and the accidental subdelegate of the Government Subdelegation in Valladolid, Javier Pérez.

Virginia Barcones has acknowledged that the youth unemployment rate in Spain is “worrying”. Last August’s unemployment in Castilla y León recorded 15,979 unemployed among young people between the ages of 16 and 29. “It is 11% less than the same month of 2022 (18,127), therefore something we are doing well. The economy of our country is strong. All the agencies point to Spain as that country that leads the growth”, said Virginia Barcones who added that they are working to reduce inflation, the second lowest in Europe.

In this regard, he explained that Next Generation funds are already being used to finance employment and training programs, a budget of 687.7 million euros through the Spain Can Plan for employment programs, agreed with the autonomous communities in July 2022 for the financing of employment and training programs, of which 37 million have arrived in Castilla y León.

One of these initiatives is the one that has been taken advantage of by the Labor Faculty of Construction. It is TandEM, a program inspired by the Workshop Schools and Employment Workshops, managed by the State Public Employment Service (SEPE), which responds to the double challenge of training and employing unqualified young people, which opens possibilities for a stable life project.

TándEM is included in the specific investment Youth Employment of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, with new public policies for a resilient and inclusive dynamic labour market, led by the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy, in whose initiatives the SEPE participates. With a total budget of 120 million euros, 80 million correspond to the year 2022 and 40 million to the year 2023.

It also allows state public sector entities to promote positions in which training and employment alternate in activities of their competence and in line with the green, digital, cohesive and social economic transformation.

Thus, young people who are unemployed and registered as job seekers between the ages of 16 and 29 - not qualified for the profession in which they will be trained - have the opportunity to train, in alternation with employment, in the Public Administration and get to know this environment first-hand.

This is the case of the plan developed by the Faculty of Construction, a project specialized in masonry of a duration of one year with a budget of 213,333 euros in which eight young people participate.

The project has more than 1,500 hours of training divided into several phases that combine theoretical and practical classes. The aim is to concentrate efforts on integrating unqualified young people into the construction sector through vocational guidance, reduction of the gender and digital divide and training of specific skills demanded by construction companies.

The first phase of the training, lasting three months, has focused on transversal training modules of the professional family of Building and Civil Works related to the occupation. During the second phase, of nine months, students are hired by the Construction Labor Foundation and receive professional training for employment related to the occupation to be carried out according to a TanDEM Training Program of ‘Bathroom Reform Operations, Improvement of Safety of Use, Accessibility and Ecoefficiency’.

In this phase theory and practice are combined. In the case of the practices, the students will develop them in the Government Delegation from next Monday, October 2. Specifically, they will carry out the renovation of three blocks of bathrooms.

During the year of training, the actions and the learning of the students are focused on: delimitation of accesses, beaconing and provisional signage of the works, protection of elements (elevator, stairs) and location of rubble containers; disassembly and removal of sanitary facilities, carpentry, mechanisms and lighting; demolition of flooring, tiling and plaster ceilings; healing of walls; plumbing and electricity pipes; laying of floors and tiling; installation of false plaster ceiling; placement of mechanisms and lighting elements; laying of sanitary facilities (washbasins, toilet bowls and installation of urinals).

This working group carried out by the Construction Labor Foundation is not the only one that takes place in Castilla y León. The TandEM Program currently brings together 100 students divided into several programs in the provinces of Valladolid, Salamanca, Palencia and Zamora.

In the case of Valladolid, these are projects in the Archivo de Simancas (eight students), Archivo de Chancillería (eight students), Insercion Empleo (four students); and the Fundación Secretariado Gitano (one student). The program with the highest number of students is being developed in Zamora by the Munus Foundation in which 30 students participate.

PROGRAM FIRST EXPERIENCE

Another of the programs aimed at facilitating access to employment for young people is the First Professional Experience in the Administration. It is a program whose main beneficiaries are the public administrations, since they are the ones that receive aid to hire people between 16 and 30 years old. In this case, young people are incorporated directly into the practices without the need for a theoretical training course.

Through the first-experience program, positions are preferably filled in tasks related to the ecological transition and the green economy, the digitalization of services, social cohesion – the care of dependency and intervention with vulnerable groups, the rehabilitation of environments and housing – as well as rural local development.

The grants to be awarded for recruitment are intended to finance the labour costs of young workers, including the contribution for all concepts to Social Security. The remuneration of the person hired in an internship may not be less than 60 percent of the salary established in agreement for a worker who holds the same position and, in any case, may not be less than the minimum interprofessional salary in force.

The duration of the contracts will be at least ten months and a maximum of twelve months. The working day is full-time.

As for the financing for the implementation of the actions subject to this call, it amounts to 112.7 million euros. Of these, 96 million are for the year 2022 and 16.5 million for the year 2023.

For the selection, the beneficiary entities must use at least one of the following options: the National Employment System, that is to say the employment services of each autonomous community to which the unemployed persons will request to contract, at least 15 days in advance of the expected start of the contracts. Or the Single Job Portal EMPLOYATE.

In the First Experience Program there are 133 young people who have joined internship jobs throughout Castilla y León. These are jobs in Paradores de Turismo, subdelegations of Government, City of Energy Foundation, Higher Sports Council, and all those agencies related to the General Administration of the State. They are formations with a very wide range and are distributed throughout the Community. In the case of the province of Valladolid there are 15 trainees in various official bodies.

“We ourselves, the Government Delegation, are one of the beneficiaries of this program. We introduced ourselves so that these young people had that first professional experience and it is being very useful,” said Virginia Barcones.

RESEARCH PROGRAM

The Investigo Programme is also aimed at facilitating access to the labour market for young people between the ages of 16 and 29. In this case it is aimed at unemployed people and registered as job seekers at the time of starting the contractual relationship, in the realization of research and innovation initiatives.

Its purpose is the full-time recruitment of young researchers, technologists, technical staff and other professional profiles in R+D+I, as well as, where appropriate, research support staff, in public research and knowledge dissemination agencies, public universities, technology centres, science and technology parks, public bodies subject to private law and private non-profit entities, such as foundations, together with companies investing in research and innovation.

The funding for the implementation of the actions amounts to 71 million euros. Of these, 58.7 million euros were for the financial year 2022 and 12.4 million euros for the financial year 2023.

In this program there are 141 young people hired in Castilla y León, some of them developing research in the universities of León, Valladolid or Salamanca, the CENIEH Consortium or the Technological Center of Cereals Foundation of Castilla y León.

In total, there are 374 young people from Castilla y León between the ages of 16 and 29 who have an employment contract through the TandEM, First Experience and Research programs at this time.

The government delegate has pointed out that she wants “in the future more” young people to take part in these programs. That is why the Government’s sub-delegations, coordinated by the Delegation, work in all areas of the peripheral services of the General State Administration to identify initiatives to recruit young people to provide services, carry out tasks or research projects related to ecological transition, digitization of services, social cohesion or rural local development. “To facilitate their training and entry into the labour market through these initiatives,” he concluded.