European Social Fund



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European Social Fund

The ESF is Europe’s main instrument for supporting jobs, helping people get better jobs and ensuring fairer job opportunities for all EU citizens.

The ESF will focus on a limited number of priorities in order to make a real impact in addressing Member States’ key challenges, which are:

  • Employment ‒ €30 billion
  • Education ‒ €26 billion
  • Social inclusion ‒ €21.3 billion
  • Institutional capacity ‒ €3.6 billion

Together with the €3.2 billion special allocation for the Youth Employment Initiative, this means that more than €86 billion will be invested in Europe’s people over the next seven years.

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In the England Programme the Priorities are:

Priority Axis 1: Inclusive Labour Markets
  • 1.1 Access to employment for jobseekers and inactive people
  • 1.2 Sustainable integration of young people
  • 1.3 Youth Employment Initiative (YEI)
  • 1.4 Active inclusion
  • 1.5 Community Led Local Development
Priority Axis 2: Skills for Growth
  • 2.1 Enhancing equal access to lifelong learning
  • 2.2 Improving the labour market relevance of education and training systems
Priority Axis 3: Technical Assistance