New project: Promoting labour participation in Rotterdam South

The municipality of Rotterdam, National Program Rotterdam South (NPRZ), the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment and cooperation partners are investing to improve services to job seekers and employers in Rotterdam South in the period 2019-2022. The aim of the "Samen voor Zuid" (Together for South) programme is to lower the percentage of social assistance dependency to the level of the rest of Rotterdam, and to increase the participation of the labour force.

To evaluate this programme and further improve the knowledge and skills of those implementating it based on insights from previous research about effective reintegration policy, the partners in the knowledge platform Urban Labour Market (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam and SEOR) have developed the KNAP'RZ project. KNAP'RZ consists of the following components:

• A baseline measurement of the re-integration services and the population receiving social assistance. This baseline is used as a reference for the other research activities.
• Monitoring of the development of social assistance dependency and labour participation
• A process evaluation and an effect evaluation
• A training programme for people involved in the programme (both managers and executers) about insights from existing research
• Reflection meetings with managers and executers
• Group meetings with job seekers, employers and neighbourhood organisations