Polish women put on themselves and their digital skills

Getting back on the professional track will become easier for women in Poland. Those who want to enrich their qualifications and have a job guaranteed afterwards should follow the updates on the project. It is about to be launched.

The Interreg SIV project, being implemented internationally in eight countries (including Poland), serves as an innovative tool to contribute to the improvement of the situation of unemployed/ underprivileged groups. 

Two Polish institutions experienced in supporting different social initiatives, despite all the challenges related to COVID-19 crisis, have joined forces to make this program work in Poland and bring a positive social impact in current challenging times. 

How is it to be done in Poland? 

At the first stage of the project, both partners conducted a few meetings that enabled them get an overview of the labour market situation. Those invited were among others, potential employers and representatives of labour market institutions. They were informed about the concept of the project and provided feedback that contributed to further decision made in order to bring the unemployed back into the labour market.

The current status of the project is that Poland is about to establish the “4impact” Foundation – a separate non-profit entity, that will collect funds and then use them to support the integration of those professionally inactive.

Target Group

Polish voucher model focuses on supporting women who want to return to the labour market and successfully become devoted and satisfied employees in new areas that use so called competences of the future.

The plan implies to conduct a few rounds of IT/digital skills trainings for job seekers in line with future employer’s needs. Each trained woman (participant) with acquired new skills will start work for and use her qualifications. In order to fully support women in their new roles we will also provide coaching/mentoring for each participant. They will get assistance in, for instance, dealing with the challenges in the workplace, developing soft skills or adjusting to the new stage of their lives.

The training rounds will focus on: 

a)    Women that lost their jobs due to COVID-19 pandemic 
b)    Women that are inactive in the labour market as a result of taking care of dependants
c)    Women in the age 60+ that want to remain active  

The IT competences that are to be offered to trainees will not only give them opportunities to reintegrate themselves into the labour market again, increase their range of qualifications but also make them perfectly prepared for conducting professional activities remotely. Taking into account the situation around the world it seems to be an ideal opportunity for the job seekers to try to get back on track as well as for the employers to find qualified staff without spending a lot of their resources on trainings.

To get more about how the labour market situation of women will change and will be affected by COVID-19 crisis visit the website: 

https://china-cee.eu/2020/07/07/poland-social-briefing-the-social-consequences-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

To get more about how the labour market situation of women will change and will be affected by COVID-19 crisis visit the website: 

https://china-cee.eu/2020/07/07/poland-social-briefing-the-social-consequences-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic/ 

Social Impact of the SIV project 

The Polish model of the SIV project: 

a)  supports reintegrating unemployed people back into the labour market
b)  gives labour opportunities to those affected by COVID-19 crisis
c)  contributes to supporting and working towards gender diversity – ensuring equal representation of women in the workplace. This issue is becoming more and more often put forward by different companies, institutions as well as business-related entities which philosophy is to make profit and give back to society.

The situation on the labour market will definitely reduce women’s chances to get employed. According to many predictions the gap between women’s and men’s employment rate will even deepen. Women are more likely to lose employment as the majority of them works in economy sectors most affected by COVID-19 crisis. SIV project seems to be a remedy to ease the consequences of the pandemic. 

To get more about the impact of COVID-19 on gender inequality in the labour market visit the website: 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616696.2020.1823010