The Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism has launched a shared working spaces plan for entrepreneurs and a youth employment plan, in cooperation with the School of Industrial Organization (Escuela de Organización Industrial - EOI). These plans have a combined budget of EUR 83 million and a target of more than 8 500 young adults and entrepreneurs.

The shared working spaces plan, to be implemented through EOI, aims at promoting entrepreneurship and the creation of innovative companies. Around 50 shared working spaces will be made available to entrepreneurs, which will help them create more than 3 500 companies. With a budget of EUR 45.8 million, jointly financed by the European social fund (ESF), it will support the development and consolidation of innovative business initiatives, with some of the spaces specialising in projects about Industry 4.0, content industry (such as games), digital transformation or creative and cultural industries.

The programme, designed for entrepreneurs who have not yet started their company or are in a very early stage of development, will provide them with support to their businesses: workspace, training, mentoring, workshops and events. Each working space will accommodate an average of 20 entrepreneurs / projects for five months, over four phases.

The youth employment plan primarily aims at providing training and hiring of people between 16 and 30 who are not in employment, nor participating in education or training. The goal is integration in the labour market and access to quality jobs. The actions will feature specialised courses to encourage recruitment through helping companies hiring students in training, to encourage self-employment, and training and support for start-up companies.

This plan, also to be developed by EOI, has a budget of EUR 38 million jointly financed by ESF to secure training and / or hiring of more than 5 000 unemployed young people.

Both plans will be free for beneficiaries, as they include local and / or regional funding. Actions are to be coordinated between the various public authorities and regional and local social and business agents.

More information:

http://www.minetur.gob.es/es-ES/GabinetePrensa/NotasPrensa/2016/Paginas/160411plan-eoi.aspx (in Spanish)

https://www.eoi.es/es/empresas/emprendedores-y-empleo (in Spanish)