On 20 December 2011 the European Commission (EC) published a comunication to propose actions to prevent and tackle the high rates of youth unemployment.

The communication focus on the following objectives: 

• Prevent early school leaving: It is seen as the first step to provide young people with adequate skills when they are in education and preventing an early drop-out from school or from apprenticeship schemes. The Council adopted a Recommendation on reducing early school leaving (ESL) in June 2011 as tool to achieve the Europe 2020 target to reduce ESL from 14% to less than 10% through a mix of prevention, intervention and compensation measures.
• Help young people to acquire and develop skills relevant to the labour market: Member States need to ensure that their education and training systems provide young people with the skills required by the labour market prioritising efficient expenditure for education and vocational training. The flagship initiative an "Agenda for New Skills and Jobs" released by the Commission in 2010 identifies measures to bring education more closely the worlds of employment. The Commission also calls for reforms to ensure the recognition of professional qualifications and proposes to develop a European Skills Passport. Lack of foreign language and ICT skills have to be tackled and young people with more entrepreneurial mindsets should be supported. In this context, the Commission intends to invest a share of the 2013 budget for research activities in the ICT domain to support young innovators and entrepreneurs.
• Ensure work experience and “on – the job” training: apprenticeships, placements in enterprises and traineeships are particularly important because, provided that they fulfil the necessary quality standards, they offer the opportunity to young people to acquire both the relevant skills and work experience. Active labour market policies and improved employment services should support young people in finding such places.
• Support young people to find good a fist job: Member States should reform employment protection legislation in consultation with social partners, guaranteeing an easier access to the labour market eliminating restrictions for business and professional services, legal professions, accounting or technical advice, health and social sectors, and through the promotion of self employment, including effective, business development support for young people.

The key measures are:

• Mobilising the European Social Fund (ESF) to support skills development and school-to-work transitions: the Commission encourages Member States to make better use of European funds focusing the ESF on youth. The EC will also allocate 1.3m EUR of ESF Technical Assistance to support setting up apprenticeship-type schemes, while another 3 m EUR on setting up support schemes for young business starters and social entrepreneur.
• Supporting the transition from education to work: An increase by at least 10% in the EU by the end of 2013 is foreseen. It would add a total of 370 000 of new apprenticeships, targeting at least 130 000 placements in 2012 under Erasmus and Leonardo da Vinci programmes. The Commission will present in 2012 a quality framework supporting the provision and take-up of high quality traineeships to increase the transparency on the conditions for trainees throughout the EU as well as a preparatory action to activate measures targeting young people  with a budget of 4 m EUR. The Commission will also invest a t share of the € 6m budget for social innovation in innovative projects, targeting youth in disadvantaged situations and areas. The budget allocation for the European Voluntary Service will be reinforced in order to provide at least 10 000 volunteering opportunities in 2012.
• Supporting labour market mobility: the EC proposes to reinforce The EURES-  European Job Mobility Portal by launching the programme ‘Your first EURES job’ and to support in 2012 around 600 further exchanges through the Erasmus for entrepreneurs programme. 
• Strengthened policy delivery as part of the European Semester: The European Commission will carry out an assessment and analysis of the measures taken by the Member States to fight youth unemployment and will report on this to the informal Council of Employment and Social Affairs Ministers in April 2012. The Commission will also provide specific guidance to Member States on measures to fight youth unemployment during the bilateral contacts preparing the National Reform Programmes 2012.

As next step the Commission will discuss the economic and social situation with each Member State and it will work with the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament to put rapidly in place the elements of the Youth Opportunities Initiative as described above.

Background

There are 5 million unemployed young people in the EU today and 7.5 million young people between 15 and 24 are currently neither in employment nor in education or training. This concerns not only low-skilled young people having left school too early, but more and more university graduates who cannot find a first job.

Further information

EC website