The regional director for Employment and Vocational Training affirmed, today, that the plans of current vocational traineeship in the Azores obtained, this year, levels of adhesion that reveal the creation of very good expectations among the youngsters.

In a press conference in Ponta Delgada meant for making the balance of the several programs of vocational traineeship addresses at youngsters, Rui Bettencourt guaranteed that there was, in 2008, a significant increase of the number of enrolled people in the Estagiar U, Estagiar T and Estagiar L programs, planned with aim at the transition for the active life.

This increase takes place in a time in which a growth of the enterprises happens in the islands at the annual rhythm of three or four percent, he underlined.

As he told, the Estagiar U, with only three or four years of existence, is a program of one month for youngsters who attend the university teaching, happening only during summer.

The Azores are the only region of the country where there is this type of traineeship, which idea is it of placing the youngsters in contact with the business system, he indicated, showing that the Estagiar U implicated, last year a total of 99 trainees, number that raised for 2062008 (increase of 108 percent).

He emphasized that the Estagiar T, with vocational traineeships of six months, includes recently graduated youngsters of the vocational teaching of level III, in other words, equivalent to the 12th grade in several areas.

For the Estagiar L and T programs, Rui Bettencourt announced that in 2007 there was a total of 308 trainees and that already this year, that number rose for 748, happening a percentage increase of 142.

He explained, also, that 82 percent of the 748 young trainees included by both programs were placed in private enterprises and 18 percent in the Regional and Local Public Administration.

He declared, equally, that only in the islands of São Miguel and Terceira, the Estagiar L program passed of 152 young trainees, in 2007, for 307 in 2008, being registered an increase of 102 percent.

In the islands of Santa Maria, Graciosa, Pico, São Jorge, Faial, Flores and Corvo, the same program reckoned with a total of 25 trainees in 2007, against 72 in 2008, completing a percentage increase of 188.

As he said, there was, a decade ago, a total of 2.827 youngsters to the search of the first job in the Azores, passing this total for 389, in July of this year, this number went down for 389, in other words, less 86 percent.

For the regional director, it is an important breach, which already in last August diminished for 296, connected with the existence of the Estagiar programs and with the adaptation of the vocational training to the job market.

Rui Bettencourt pointed the vocational schools like first strategy of recruitment by the enterprises, being followed by the traineeship plans, being the employment centres at fifth place in the ranking of the preferences of the businessmen in the Region.

The regional director for Employment and Vocational Training showed, still, that, since 2001, the workers' number in the boards of the enterprises, in the archipelago, increased 23,4 percent.

He referred that in the private enterprises, 53 percent of the workers have less than 35 years old, circumstance that allows ending that more than half of the workers, in the islands, are young.

Since 1998, there were already 33.526 youngsters who attend the Estagiar L and T programs, being that of these trainees only 14 were registered in the employment centres of the Azores, he suggested.