Unemployment among people with immigrants background is higher than the average. Numbers from the Ministry of Integration of 2005 showed that ethnic Danish people had an employment frequency of 76% compared to only 46% for the people with immigrant background. In some deprived neighbourhoods with a high share of immigrants and children of immigrants, e.g. Taastrupgaard, the numbers are even higher. Hence, there is a need for a special local effort in some area as a supplement to the regular municipal effort.

The 'Jobexpres' is an employment project in Taastrupgaard near Copenhagen primarily aimed at unoccupied people with immigrant background. Many parties are cooperating in this project; the local centre, the language school, the business centre, SID (the General Workers Union), the employment exchange, the housing association and a range of private businesses.

The primary task of the Jobexpres is to be the link between unemployed residents and business in and outside of the area. The Jobexpres has carefully hired staff that have personal experiences and commitment. The employment of 'fiery souls' has lead to a progressive approach where the drive of the employee is to achieve results. At the same time the job consultants are role models, since they also have immigrant background and managed to break an unemployment pattern.

The Jobexpres aims for having a fast and efficient administrative procedure where citizens are "thrown out" on to the job market as fast as possible. The main philosophy of the Jobexpres is that there are no barriers (bad excuses) that can not be broken down. For example, it is not a problem that one does not speak perfect Danish -an interpretor the first days of work can make sure the basic instructions are understood and after that the job in itself is a way to learn the language.

The fundamental approach of the Jobexpres is that when there is a special concentration of employment problems in a given area a special effort is needed -the effort depends on the problems. As mentioned the recruitment of personally committed employees in stead of experts is one of the keys to the succes of the Jobexpres. Furthermore the localisation of Jobexpres in the same building as the municipality has contributed to a close cooperation.

Unoccupied people with immigrant background.

Within the first two years of the project more than 252 citizens were employed, 27 are employed with state grants, 26 got an internship, 26 started an education and 36 young people got a spare time job. (Numbers from January 2006).

Primarily, the unemployed people benefit from the Jobexpres. However, the decreasing unemployment also benefit society in general and specifically the local area.

There are five employees connected to the Jobexpres; three job consultants, a coordinator and a manager. The annual expenses of the Jobexpres was in 2005 around 1,5 million Danish kroner.

The Jobexpres is financed partly by the municipality of Høje Taastrup and partly by the Ministry of Integration as part of the project "Byer for alle" (Cities for everybody).

The Municipality of Høje Taastrup
Denmark
Ahmed Nihrane, tel. 0045 43 35 37 51

01/10/2003

case

Urban Policy

Social inclusion & integration