Abstract:

The ability to gain an initial employment and to be able to move around within the labor market has been called employability. It is one of the main goals to be achieved since the creation of the European Higher Education Area.

Taking into account the serious problem of unemployment of graduates in Europe, and concretely in Spain, this paper shows how employability is a very relevant point in the public policy in the Spanish region of Extremadura. In this paper, we present the case of training people unemployed (with a University degree, mainly) in Foreign Trade as a way for improving their employability and a way for helping small and medium enterprises to export by integrating them into their businesses. We analyze the experience of training courses conducted at the University of Extremadura in collaboration with Extremadura Avante, a public enterprise depending on the Regional Government of Extremadura, during the last years (2012-2015).

The project for training professionals in Foreign Trade, called FORMACOEX, is structured in two parts. The first part is an intensive course in Foreign Trade for graduates in transition to the labor market. The course mixes academic teachers with professional consultants in order to offer the basic theory in Foreign Trade and, at the same time, practice and real examples come into account. The second part is a training period of a minimum of 5 months in businesses. Extremadura Avante provides work placements in companies interested in starting to internationalize and to export, through collaboration agreements. Each agreement regulates working conditions and the formative character of the experience, which is controlled by different tutors during the process. Students engaged in the second part of the process can be later eligible for these companies (or other companies) to continuous working after the program is finished.

As conclusion, it is highlighted that such experience could be considered an example of good practice, although some points of improvement will be also discussed.

Keywords:

Employability, Higher Education, Training, Foreign Trade.