European semester thematic fiche: Youth employment
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Experts from many international, regional and national agencies generously share their views, experiences and findings on skills, helping policy-makers among other stakeholders to understand the linkages between education, training and the world of work, and how to integrate skills into national development planning to promote employment and economic growth.
Youth employability
Globally, nearly 68 million young women and men are looking for and available for work, and an estimated 123 million young people are working but living in poverty. The number who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) stands at 267 million, a majority of whom are young women. Significantly, young people are three times as likely as adults (25 years and older) to be unemployed.
Skills development is a primary means of enabling young people to make a smooth transition to work. A comprehensive approach is required to integrate young women and men in the labour market, including relevant and quality skills training, labour market information, career guidance and employment services, recognition of prior learning, incorporating entrepreneurship with training and effective skills forecasting. Improved basic education and core work skills are particularly important to enable youth to engage in lifelong learning as well as transition to the labour market.
Promotional material
Presentations, discussion papers, meeting reports, promotional materials, videos, fact sheets, brochures and newsletters on skills development for employment.
The transition of young people from school to work is burdened by specific challenges, which become manifest in relatively low employment rates, high unemployment and high rates of young people who are neither in employment, education or training (NEETs). Youth unemployment is more sensitive to the business cycle than adult unemployment. Being new entrants with limited work experience, young people are less likely to find a job, are often employed through temporary contracts or pursuing a traineeship, and they are more easily dismissed if the economic cycle is weak. Moreover, young workers tend to be concentrated in economic sectors that are more exposed to downturns.
Current levels of low youth employment and high unemployment and inactivity are largely due to the macro-economic situation, but they also have important root causes in terms of structural characteristics of school-to-work transitions, which were already prevalent before the crisis. These structural factors include, among others, unsatisfactory outcomes of education and training systems, segmentation of labour markets affecting young people in particular, as well as a low capacity of public employment services in providing tailored services to young people and limited outreach to young people in the most vulnerable situations. This thematic summary provides a comprehensive picture of youth employment in Europe.
Youth
Europe and Central Asia
