Kontakt 2011, 13(2):177-186 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2011.022

Volunteering: one of the possibilities for the unemployedHealth and Social Sciences - Review

Michaela Kabelková^1,2,*, Petra Königová³

¹ Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, katedra sociální práce

² Clemson University, Jižní Karolína, USA

³ Západomoravská vysoká škola v Třebíči

Due to the slowly receding global economic crisis, the number of unemployed persons in the Czech Republic remains high. According to data of the Czech Statistical Office, in the fourth quartile of 2010, the unemployment rate reached 7% for those between the ages of 15-64. Accordingly, it is important to discover ways to reduce the high unemployment rate, reduce the corresponding impact on the state budget, and most importantly, help the unemployed. In the Czech Republic, the most common and preferred approach to reducing the structural unemployment is through re-training. We believe an additional approach merits consideration, namely, the use of volunteering. Volunteering is not a novelty approach to reducing unemployment. In the Czech Republic, it was first implemented in 2000; however, it remains rather invisible. In this article, we introduce volunteering, its legislative background, and benefits that volunteering might bring to the unemployed. We also provide examples of situations where volunteering can complement or provide a substitute for re-training as well as serve as a first job experience for graduates. Next, we list some barriers to volunteering, and finally, we focus on the Czech experience with volunteering of the unemployed. We acknowledge that only a specific group of unemployed persons might find volunteering suitable and interesting and that only some non-governmental organizations might find volunteers among the unemployed. However, we believe that volunteering is one of the means to decrease unemployment and the negative impacts of unemployment, and we envision some steps to make volunteering among the unemployed a more popular concept. Year 2011 is the European Year of the Volunteer, and in this context, we hope this article could steer some discussion about volunteering of the unemployed.

Keywords: volunteering; unemployed persons; re-training; first job experience; barriers

Received: February 14, 2011; Accepted: May 5, 2011; Published: June 20, 2011  Show citation