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Youth employment

The EU is working to reduce youth unemployment and to increase the youth-employment rate in line with the wider EU target of achieving a 75% employment rate for the working-age population (20-64 years).

Factsheet: EU measures to tackle youth unemployment

Key actions

• Youth Employment Initiative (2013) reinforces and accelerates measures outlined in the Youth Employment Package. It aims to support particularly young people not in education, employment or training in regions with a youth unemployment rate above 25 %.
• Youth Employment Package (2012) is the follow-up to the actions on youth laid out in the wider Employment Package and includes:
  
  • A proposal to Member States to establish a youth guarantee – agreed upon by the Employment and Social Policy Council (EPSCO) in February 2013
  • Second-stage consultation of EU social partners on a quality framework for traineeships
  • The announcement of a European Alliance for Apprenticeships and ways to reduce obstacles to mobility for young people.
• Youth on the Move is a comprehensive package of policy initiatives on education and employment for young people in Europe
  
  • Youth Opportunities Initiative (2011) includes actions to drive down youth unemployment
  • Your first EURES Job aims to help young people to fill job vacancies throughout the EU.
• EU Skills Panorama is a EU-wide tool gathering information on skills needs, forecasting and developments in the labour market.
• Measures in the field of education and culture

Why?

• Youth unemployment rate is more than twice as high as the adult one – 23.3 % against 9.3 % in the fourth quarter of 2012.
• The chances for a young unemployed person of finding a job are low – only 29.7 % of those aged 15-24 and unemployed in 2010 found a job in 2011.
• When young people do work, their jobs tend to be less stable – in 2012, 42.0 % of young employees were working on a temporary contract (four times as much as adults) and 32.0 % part-time (nearly twice the adults’ rate).
• Early leavers from education and training are a high-risk group – 55.5% of them are not employed and within this group about 70% want to work.
• Resignation is an increasing concern – 12.6 % of inactive youth wanted to work but were not searching for employment in the third quarter of 2012.
• In 2011, 12.9% of young people were neither in employment nor in education or training (NEETs).
• There are significant skills mismatches on Europe's labour market.
• Despite the crisis, there are over 2 million unfilled vacancies in the EU.