MOVE ON – CROSS-BORDER MOBILITY THROUGH THE PROVISION OF VOUCHER

The common challenge that MOVE ON wants to address is unemployment, especially youth unemployment. According to Eurostat, in 2018 the unemployment rate for the 15-24 age group was 53.6% in Sicily (+0.9% compared to 2017) while in Malta it was decidedly lower (9.2%) and lower than that of the previous year (10.6%). According to the European Commission’s projections for 2020, the GDP growth prospects are also quite different: + 5% for Malta and + 0.7% for Italy, respectively the first and last among the EU countries in this sense. Two economic systems, with opposite tendencies regarding job opportunities for young people, if they face this challenge together can support the search for a better balance across the cross-border labor market. In other words, if it is true that young Sicilians are facing greater difficulties in entering the job market, it is also true that the Maltese economic system, compared to the Sicilian one, has greater difficulty in finding qualified manpower in the priority sectors of the cooperation programme. The general objective of the project was therefore to promote job placement opportunities for young people by supporting mobility processes within the cross-border area. to this end, the main results obtained from the project are the following: – assignment of 100 international mobility vouchers for internships lasting 6 months – activation of 2 project desks to assist beneficiaries and other target groups – creation of 2 cooperation networks national and one cross-border Italy-Malta