ABSTRACT
About 522,000 young people started a vocational education and training (VET) 1 program after graduating from school in 2015 in Germany (BMBF 2016). Another 270,000 people could not enter the VET system right away but entered the so-called transition system where different measures prepare them for job training or employment. There is an ongoing controversy about this latter system, as many preparation measures seem not to keep to what they promise and do not lead to proper employment (BIBB and Bertelsmann Stiftung 2011). Against this background, and following a proposal of the ‘Working Alliance Youth and Profession’ of the German Employment Agency in 2010, six local authorities pioneered a new approach and set up local coalitions where different service providers of jurisdictional areas started working hand-in-hand. Amongst them is the city of Hamburg, where the first so-called Youth Employment Agency (YEA) 2 opened in 2012. By now, one branch has been established in each of the seven districts. The YEA aims at linking up the widespread responsibilities and resources of relevant actors concerning the transition of young people from education to the labour market in a ‘one-stop-shop’ approach. It is expected that in this way more young people can be reached and supported at an early stage and that the number of young people in preparation schemes can be reduced. The YEA brings together services of the employment agency (Agentur für Arbeit), the school authority (Schulbehörde) and the social services departments at district and city-wide levels to achieve synergies and a more focused support. This approach has received wide attention from other local and regional authorities and can be regarded as a model for social innovation with national impact (e.g. in Berlin, a YEA based on the Hamburg model was launched in 2015).
