Austria is a pioneer in tackling youth unemployment: Like Finland, it already has adopted a vocational training guarantee that serves as a model for the European wide Youth Guarantee. Young people in Austria who cannot find a regular job or vocational training offer within three months can start vocational training in state funded training workshops – and later change to vocational training in companies if possible.  
Vienna has its own Vocational Training Guarantee, which puts special emphasis on a cooperative strategy providing an example of how the problem of youth unemployment can be tackled in a joint effort by the different actors involved from schools, public authorities and social partners to the Public Employment Service.

In order to guarantee a smooth collaboration between the different stakeholders, a coordination unit was set up. For, as explains Dr. Eva Krennbauer, responsible for municipal labour market policy at waff (Vienna Employment Promotion Fund) and member of the coordination unit, conflicts of interests or systems often reveal themselves through quarrels on the project level. These disagreements are solved by the steering group who tries to establish if the problem lies on the concept, target or also system level and to find solutions in the best interest of the target group. This coordinated approach, which is top-down as well as bottom-up, allows to detect “system errors” and to evolve the system at all levels – a “laborious path”, according to Dr. Eva Krennbauer, which, however “very well makes sense”.

Vienna's Vocational Training Guarantee, launched in 2010 provides an extensive offer for young people on Vienna's labour market aiming at training and qualifying young people beyond compulsory school level. The target group includes all young people in Vienna between 14/15 (when they complete compulsory school, i. e. grade 9) and 21 (completed 20th year of age).  as a model for the European Youth guarantee

For further information on Vienna’s Vocational Training Guarantee please refer to: http://www.waff.at/html/en/index.aspx?page_url=Wiener_Ausbildungsgarantie&mid=369

The project spacelab

The main objective of spacelab is to create professional perspectives for young people. A central part of the project is open youth work where social workers reach out for the youth in public places. The project, which was awarded the Austrian ESF innovation award in 2013, shows convincing results with 36% of the participants having started a scholar career, an apprenticeship, other qualification programmes or got employed in 2013. 95% of the young people who have participated in the project for more than three months stated that they got a vocational perspective.

In “spacelab” different institutions that provide training, information and advice and/or support for young people work together under a cooperative strategy. Namely, these are: the Vienna Board of Education, the Public Employment Service Vienna, the Federal Social Welfare Department for Vienna, the Vienna Employment Promotion Fund, the MA 13 – Education and extracurricular youth support, and the social partners.

Activation, career orientation, planning the future: spacelab – production school Vienna (PS Wien), spacelab for short, constitutes a modular offer for youth and young adults aged 15 to 25, who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). Based on many years of experience in this field, the project represents a low-threshold institution within the framework of Vienna‘s Vocational Training Guarantee and has several locations in Vienna.
The project is implemented in a modular approach:

• open youth work: young people are contacted by youth workers in public places, shopping malls or parks
• ‘developing perspectives’: with coaches young people develop plans for their future
• daily training: in the different spacelabs (environment, creative and spacelab girls); partici-pants get a pocket money of 10 EUR per day or, if they take part for six months in the framework of a ‘workshop training’, an allowance by the Public Employment Service 

Spacelab is funded by waff, the Vienna Employment Promotion Fund (Wiener ArbeitnehmerInnen Förderungsfonds), and by AMS Vienna, the Public Employment Service (Arbeitsmarktservice), with a budget of 3.5 million euros. Furthermore, the project is supported by Vienna’s Municipal Department 13 (MA 13: Education and Youth Work), which provides infrastructure and personnel from its Association of Youth Centres in Vienna.