City of Helsinki

The Migrant Youth Helsinki Project – Job’d

Job’d is an employment model created in the Migrant Youth Helsinki project. The model is based on the idea of creating new paid gigs for the youth to offer an opportunity for first job experiences and learning working life skills.

Work is easy to accept in Job’d: young people can accept gigs with a phone application that is also used to pay them. The worker receives their pay in two to three days from completing a gig, which is a good fit for the lives of young people between the ages of 15 and 20. The gigs in the application have been tailor-made to employ young immigrants. Currently, the application offers domestic help work and temporary jobs at different events.

  • Over 28,000

    hours worked

  • Over 600

    young people employed

  • Over 1,200

    jobs and experiences

Job’d answers a real need, as many young immigrants in particular have great difficulty in finding their first job. Their obstacles include a foreign-sounding name, different appearance and the limited networks of their parents.

The project started from combining two social challenges: how to offer accessible jobs for young immigrants and how to provide assistance for the elderly in need of help and suffering from loneliness. The first quick trial offered young immigrants some domestic help work with war veterans, and it was a success.

Job’d is based on three principles:

  • 1. Any jobs will be created specifically for Job’d and will not replace other duties.
  • 2. All work must be paid, and it is offered to young people with no work experience.
  • 3. The jobs must benefit communities.

Quick and cost-effective model eases youth entry into working life

The Job’d model has proven to be quick and cost-effective in preventing the unemployment of the immigrant youth, and a way of providing help for senior citizens, single parents and local event organisers. Job’d helps the youth build their working life skills like responsibility, time management, tax reporting and application writing. Above all, it offers young people new opportunities and better prospects.

Thanks to young immigrants, the scope of many senior citizen’s lives has been broadened, and home care workers have reported improved moods. The young people have enjoyed the meaningfulness of the work and the opportunity to earn a living.

– Sami Komppula, coordinator, Job’d