Situation
Ungdomsskoleforeningen (The Danish Youth School Association) and Coop have, over the past six years, worked in a targeted way to strengthen vulnerable young people’s route into the labour market through the national part-time job initiative Coop Crew. The initiative combines training and practical exercises with concrete experience from the retail sector, giving young people a structured and safe first introduction to the labour market. The initiative should be seen in the light of a broader societal focus on young people’s wellbeing and the importance of meaningful communities, which can strengthen both their personal development and their participation in society.
Complication
Municipalities and organisations are increasingly calling for robust, data-driven evaluations that can document how part-time jobs affect young people’s opportunities in the longer term. To shed light on the effects of Coop Crew, Epinion carried out a quantitative impact measurement based on register data and advanced regression and matching analyses. This approach enables a precise estimate of the effects of the initiative and provides a nuanced insight into participants’ attachment to education and the labour market up to 18 months after the programme. The evaluation establishes a solid evidence base that can be used to understand and further develop part-time job initiatives that strengthen young people’s development and wellbeing going forward.
Recommendation
The evaluation shows that Coop Crew significantly increases young people’s attachment to the labour market and reduces the risk of them being outside employment and education. The evaluation also shows that the initiative is particularly effective for the very most vulnerable young people from specialist provision. The results confirm that part-time jobs play a substantial role in young people’s development and transition into adulthood, giving them competences, structure and experience that extend far beyond the first job. The insights are now being used as a foundation for the development and embedding of a new and broader part-time job initiative among vulnerable young people, called Fritidscrew, where documented effects form a central basis for decision-making.
