New professional opportunities for Zurich’s long-term unemployed
The “Opportunity Zürich” programme identifies new talent and offers the recipients of welfare benefits eight intensive months of training as web developers. The project tackles personnel shortages in the ICT area and relieves pressure on welfare benefits.
Ongoing digitalisation of the workplace is changing the employment market for good.
Digital capabilities are increasingly becoming a key component for companies.
The work-integration scheme of the city of Zurich’s welfare office and the Stiftung SAG foundation have responded to these developments with a new programme for long-term unemployed adults. “Opportunity Zürich” provides eight months of training in web development for the recipients of welfare benefits. The first course started on 6 April. All 25 training places are taken – 9 women and 16 men have successfully passed an up-front two-stage assessment and will be taught by experienced web development trainers and receive support from job coaches until the end of November 2021.
Flexible, hands-on training
Practically oriented training is key: during the training course, participants work on concrete projects to learn how to programme and design websites and apps. The city’s work-integration team and its project partner, Stiftung SAG, analyse the hard and soft skills required by the market in IT on a continuous basis, in order to ensure successful entry into the workplace. “Opportunity Zürich” is also able to train participants to meet the specific requirements of individual companies. Companies interested in cooperating with “Opportunity Zürich” should contact the welfare office of the city of Zurich (www.stadt-zuerich.ch/opportunity).
Opportunity – an international project
“Opportunity Zürich” is a cooperative initiative between the city’s work integration team and Stiftung SAG, and is part of the Simplon.co network. Simplon.co is present in 18 countries and has enabled the training of over 11,000 people since 2013. In Switzerland, the réalise foundation is responsible for implementing the concept. “Opportunity Zürich” received set-up support from the BNP Paribas Swiss Foundation.
