Make a virtue of the need. ASSEN does this with a special project, in which they take asylum seekers, status holders and Ukrainians in municipal service. After a training course they will work in the green management of the city. There the municipality is struggling with staff shortage. In the meantime, people in the AZC or in the special Ukraine shelter would like to work.
In principle, it concerns twenty people who wants to retrain Assen as gardeners for the next two years. It is a test under the title ‘Deputy stages in the public space’, and this costs the municipality 275,000 euros per year. The city council has agreed to the project.
The intention is that five people enter green management every six months. They are prepared as a gardener in six months. In addition, they get help with their language development, especially about the green field. And they must be able to handle machines safely. The aim is that after that training and guidance period as an independent employee they can participate in municipal green management.
According to Alderman Cor Staal (ChristenUnie), the knife cuts on two sides. “As a municipality, we set a good example by hiring asylum seekers with us. And we solve a piece of staff shortage.” Because of that shortage, the Asser Groen department has now had to hire temporary workers, which quickly cost 60,000 euros per year.
A year ago, Assen also started the pilot project ‘Faster start, stronger future’, an employment project for residents of the asylum seekers’ center. In addition, the aim is to help asylum seekers, pending their stay procedure, to work at companies in Assen. In this way they can already integrate, which is in their favor later as soon as they receive their residence permit.
According to Alderman Staal, the municipality cannot lag behind this itself. “We ourselves are of course also a large employer, and thereby offer some workplaces in our green department. At the same time, this is also an answer to the shortage on the labor market. Because we certainly feel that at our Public Space Management department. There is too much work for too few staff.”
The influx of employees has fallen considerably at Werkpunt lately. That is the department that helps people, who otherwise hardly get to work. They mainly end up with green management. Now that that current seems to dry more and more, Assen is looking at other solutions.
She sees them in the ‘non -native speakers’ group, which means asylum seekers, status holders and Ukrainians. Among that group are enough people who would like to do paid work, but who are difficult to enter somewhere on their own. Assen now jumps into that hole.
For guidance and the preparation of the ‘foreigners’, there will be an extra coach at Werkpunt. Assen states that the investment will automatically pay for itself, “because through intensive guidance and targeted training, they can integrate faster and more effectively, and they can be deployed sustainably within the municipality.” It also saves extra costs for temporary workers.