Source: European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT)

Every year Philips makes room in its Dutch divisions to give a year’s work experience to 800 long term unemployed, falling mostly into 4 categories:

• those with no qualifications or the wrong ones, 

• women re-entering the labour market, 

• foreign nationals and those with a handicap.

In cooperation with the local labour office the company matches their training to the current and future demands of local companies, paying special attention to the needs of SMEs.

The Philips’ work-experience training has reached over 7,500 long term unemployed. The programme’s market-oriented approach produces good results. About 80% of the trainees find paid jobs after their training. SMEs acquire new staff who are immediately productive.

Some SMEs need workers with special skills but cannot afford time off for training. One example in the multimedia sector was a Philips programme to train long term unemployed graduates to design software for interactive training.

This created 21 work-experience places. The specific technical training came after sessions on assessment and building team spirit. The trainees were then put to work with manufacturers of CD-I and CDROM machines.

When the course ended, all trainees but one found jobs: 14 with SMEs, three with Philips and three started their own multimedia SME and are now thriving.

Philips organised another training project in microelectronics, a sector with a severe shortage of skilled workers. In response to a strong demand from local SMEs for highly specific training in the graphics industry, Philips set up a work-experience course which was then taken over by industry.

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