Objectives The aim of the project is to increase employment opportunities through public procurement for those in a weak labour market position, such as the long-term unemployed, the elderly, migrants, young people and people with partial work capacity. This will be done in practice by developing public procurement and the employment conditions applicable to them, and by experimenting with innovative performance-based methods in public procurement to support employment. The potential of public procurement for the employment of those in a weak position on the labour market is still poorly identified and exploited in Finland. The aim of the project is to increase the skills and experiences of municipalities in combining employment and procurement in new ways. The long-term goal of the project is to make employment a permanent part of the procurement activities of participating municipalities through public procurement. The project network AND INTERNATIONAL co-operation project is international and closely cooperates with Swedish partners. International cooperation supports the development and testing of innovative methods to support employment in public procurement. International cooperation is natural because public procurement is largely regulated by the procurement directive common to EU countries. The municipalities participating in the project are at different levels of expertise in employment through procurement. The project’s co-development is based on peer learning, which takes place in international themed workshops, job exchanges and mentoring. In Finland, the project network consists of sub-projects in the cities of Helsinki and Vantaa, which implement procurement pilots both in the EU, which coordinates both national activities and international cooperation. The project network also includes the City of Espoo, the Vates Foundation and Hansel, the central purchasing body of the State. A national project group will be set up to develop and strengthen cooperation in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The international project team supports learning and the exchange of information between different actors. From Sweden, the national contracting authority, Upphandlingsmyndigheten and the municipalities of Stockholm, Gothenburg, Botkyrka and Helsingborg are involved in the project as co-ordinating body. Arbetsförmedling participates in the project as a national authority. The project will carry out pilot procurements to support employment. Employment is supported through procurement through different ways of applying the employment condition and by supporting companies to increase their employment impact by following performance-based procurement principles. The project is experimenting with various incentives for companies through public procurement to increase employment. The project is experimenting with a procurement model that buys not only the actual service, product or work, but also the impact on employment. The sourcing model does not define precisely what kind of employment measures are required of the supplier, but allows suppliers to innovate freely with employment-related measures. The aim is that one third of public procurement under the project would encourage new innovations in close cooperation with businesses. The project also pilots employment conditions in procurements with high employment potential, but with limited experience, such as construction works. The project addresses the challenges of recruiting target groups and analyses public procurement in relation to the current labour market situation in order to achieve a meaningful targeting of employment conditions. The use of employment-friendly procurement criteria for procurement in high unemployment sectors has the potential to create jobs in these sectors in a tailor-made manner. In order to achieve this objective, the project will work closely with the TE Office, employment services and procurement operators. The project develops procurement statistics so that the municipalities participating in the project have common parameters and comparable results. As a result of the linkage, different forms of employment can be easily compared with each other through procurement. The project collects and produces data on the economic impact of employment from the perspective of both the individual and the municipality through public procurement. The communication of the project will focus on influencing work based on the experience of the project and the information collected on the results of the project. The aim of the project’s communication is to support the emergence of policy decisions that are positive for employment conditions and changes in working methods. The project’s communication is web-based and is carried out in close cooperation with stakeholders and uses the own communication channels of the sub-projects.