Abstract:

One of the most common problems that today’s societies encounter is undemployment. The problem of unemployment emerges as a basic concept that societies, whether they are developed or developing countries, have to struggle against all the time. The reflections of unemployment on society may cause disappointing results in terms of both economical and sociological perspectives. Political decision mechanisms produce several policies to eliminate these results and negative conditions. Besides removing unemployment, the main aim of these policies is to meet the demand of increasing skilled labourer. For this purpose, studies are carried out via organizing several training activities towards unemployed individuals to increase their qualifications. In Turkey, Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR) is the leading organization among the institutions that are in service in this direction. Within the body of İŞKUR, active and passive labour market policies are implemented in the process of struggle against unemployment. In recent years, active labour market policies have become critical and important in terms of especially training qualified labour force. Active labour market policies implemented within İŞKUR are applied in the fields of Programs for Disadvantaged Groups, Programs for Community Benefit, Programs for Job Shadowing, Training Programs for Entrepreneurship and Vocational Training Courses. This study focuses on vocational training courses, programs for job shadowing and training programs for entrepreneurship which have an important and crucial place in İŞKUR’s active labour market policies. For this purpose, practices of vocational training courses, programs for job shadowing and training programs for entrepreneurship in Kütahya Province have been investigated and analyzed. In this context, the place and importance of these programs within active labour programs and the effect of these programs in reducing unemployment rates are evaluated by taking into consideration the general view of labour market in Kütahya.

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