The Regional Director for Labour, Vocational Training and Consumer Protection, Rui Bettencourt, will present the Azorean employment policies to the students enrolled in the Master’s Degree in Labour Studies at the University of Paris on Wednesday at the invitation of Professor Jean Luc Ferrand.

The Regional Employment Plan of the Azores for 2010 - 2015 is one of the eight subjects of study comprised by the European Master programme, being described as “an example of an integrated employment policy.”

The North-American expert in strategy, Joseph Coates, considered the Azorean case as a “postcard of progress in the promotion of employment from a small territory” in the Editorial Board of the journal on global public policies, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, published last November in New York, Oxford, Philadelphia, Amsterdam and Paris.

Furthermore, the European expert in employment policies and vocational training, Guy Le Boterf, through correspondence addressed at the Regional Director of Labour, reacted to the dissemination of the Azorean approach published in the speciality magazine dedicated regional vocational training policies, Éducation Permanente, last November, considering the Azorean  experience as “stimulating in an instructive and innovative territory.”

One should remind that in a recent international study, the Azores have been considered the region with the lowest unemployment rate in the Iberian Peninsula.

“The Regional Employment Plan of the Azores thus raises curiosity and interest at a time when several European countries and regions are debating new paradigms for employment policies,” concluded Rui Bettencourt.