Improving job prospects for young Europeans

The number of young people without jobs has assumed alarming proportions, especially in Southern Europe where almost every other young person is unemployed (Greece 64.2%, followed by Spain with 56% and Portugal with 42%). The average youth unemployment rate in the EU is now above 23%, which means nearly 6 million Europeans under 25.

The high rate of youth unemployment in the EU has a negative impact on the social, economic and demographic situation in Europe. And the current economic crisis can cause long-term unemployment, which brings risks of social exclusion.

The EPP Group stresses that we should act now to stop the rise of the problem. We therefore support the adoption by the European Parliament of a report by Joanna Skrzydlewska MEP called 'Tackling youth unemployment: possible ways out'. It is fundamental to ensure that as many young people as possible have better employment prospects by both implementing good practices introduced by some Member States and acting on both the EU and national level.

Identifying problems to find possible ways out

Learning more about the causes of youth unemployment, especially in the context of the economic crisis, is the first step in preventing it and finding ways to reduce it. In her report, Joanna Skrzydlewska draws attention to the following causes of youth unemployment:

• no match of the qualifications of young people to the requirements of the labour market;
• lack of investments to create growth and jobs and boost domestic demands.

Measures to improve the employment situation of young people

She also proposes concrete short- and long-term measures and activities to stimulate general economic recovery and employment policy reform:

• Implementation of the Youth Guarantee. With a budget of 8 billion euros, this initiative aims to ensure that young people receive a good-quality offer of employment, further education or training. It will help young people to adapt and give them an alternative when there are no jobs available. Skrzydlewska stresses that the age limit for recipients of this support should be raised to 30. The Youth Guarantee scheme should support individuals on the one hand (via subsidies, tax incentives etc.), and institutions on the other (by establishing training centres, supporting education and apprenticeship systems).

• Improvement of the visibility of and accessibility to the EURES network (the European Job Mobility Portal), which helps young people to access information and to actively seek jobs across Europe. Additionally, further progress towards the mutual recognition of qualifications and skills in the EU will contribute to the promotion of job mobility among young people.

• Creating a separate chapter and budget for youth within the Erasmus for ALL programme, together with support for groups of young people who are informally active in youth work, through volunteering for example.

• Promotion of vocational education and the apprenticeship strategy by organising European and national campaigns.

Strong cooperation should be combined with actions taken by individual Member States

These proposals can work only if the necessary action is taken at Member-State level. Therefore special attention should be paid to the modernisation of education, high-quality apprenticeships, prevention of early school leaving and developing a more specific approach to NEETs (people not in education, employment or training – which includes disabled and young mothers). The Member States should also focus more on the dual education system which gives young people the opportunity to combine workplace experience and practice with vocational education.

Strong cooperation between the different stakeholders will guarantee that all the activities undertaken will bring about the expected results - by improving the situation of young people in the employment market now and in the future.

Next steps

The European Parliament will vote on Skrzydlewska's report on improving the job prospects of young Europeans in its September plenary session on Wednesday 11.