- Almost half of these young people, neither in employment nor in training, have been in this situation for a year or more.
- 37% of them escape the radars of the public employment services, which try as best they can to locate and support them.
Their situation worries the public authorities. Leaving the school system sooner or later, graduates or not, they are released into the wild. Aged between 16 and 25, they are not enrolled in any training. And don't have a job either. In 2018, nearly 963,000 young people were in such a situation in France, according to a study published this Friday by the Statistical Institute of the Ministry of Labor, Dares.
If we know their number, we do not always know where they are, according to the same study. Only 63% of these young people are in contact with the public employment service, that is to say Pôle Emploi, local missions, integration associations or other institutions responsible for integrating them into the world of work. In other words: 37% of young people who have left the school system, or around 350,000, are not followed up and described as "invisible" by the public authorities and integration professionals.
In Ile-de-France in particular, the prefecture has set itself the objective of finding these young people through its "regional integration plan for neighborhood youth". There are many: in 2019 alone, the state estimates that the school system will drop out of 19,000. While 13,000 are without solution and 9,000 are unreachable, the objective is to try to fish them out to reintegrate them into training or through work.
"We don't have the power to bring them in"
Responsible for monitoring young people aged 16 to 25, the local missions are on the front line. Professional integration advisor to the local intermunicipal mission, located in Sartrouville (Yvelines), Nadia Hemery is on the lookout for these "invisible" people who don't necessarily have the reflex of coming on a local mission. His daily life then consists of telephoning these young people, sending them emails, texting, to make them make an appointment. "We do not have the power to bring them in, they do not have the obligation to come on a local mission," regrets the councilor. To convince them, it relies in particular on a "sourcer" responsible for going into the neighborhoods, at the foot of the building bars. The prefecture of Ile-de-France currently relies on these intermediaries, or "career advisers" to reach out to these young people in the 78 priority neighborhoods specifically targeted in Ile-de-France.
A position that has become necessary. "In priority neighborhoods, young people are isolated and disappointed with the institutions," says Mehdi. "Sourcer" for the local mission until the end of 2019, its role consisted in building links between young people and institutions ... or picking up the pieces. Because many young people have already been able to contact the local mission in the past without having an immediate response from counselors. No wonder: "Each counselor has a portfolio of 400 to 500 young people, it's huge," he explains. His role was then to "reconnect" and ensure that they were quickly received by advisers.
"We must not let go"
But once the contact is renewed, the work of the advisers is far from over. "We must not let go of them, I am always on their back," insists Nadia Hemery, whose concern is then to ensure that they will come to the scheduled appointments. According to Dares, 64% of young people neither in employment nor in training do not wish to work. Often because they have dependent children, health problems ... or are reluctant to move. “Taking the bus to reach the city center, for them it's already huge. They stay with each other, often they don't have a vehicle, can't afford their driver's license, ”says Mehdi.
One of the priorities is also to convince them to go back to training to increase their chances of finding a job, rather than chaining low-skilled jobs without prospects. "The problem is that the training is still not paid," notes Mehdi on this subject. Furthermore, the barrier is psychological. "They left school too early and are afraid to go to training," says Nadia Hemery. “You have to value them all the time, tell them that they are the best, that they have skills. They lack self-confidence, ”admits the counselor. A job for which time can sometimes run out. At the local mission in Sartrouville alone, nearly 1,200 young people are followed. And in France, in 2018, almost half of young people were neither in employment nor in training for more than a year.
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