Youth Guarantee

Why Youth Guarantee?  While young people often experience difficulty in transitioning from school to work, the recent crisis has hit young people particularly hard.  In some countries, the youth unemployment rate is over 50% for 15 to 24 year olds, and the EU-28 average for the same age group was 21.4% in December Source: European Commission

Current situation  More than 33% of unemployed people under 25 had been unemployed for more than a year in  7.5 million young Europeans between 15 and 24 are not employed, not in education and not in training (NEETs).  More than 5 million young people aged are unemployed in the EU today.

ES51,4 % EL50,6 % HR44,8 % DE7,2 % AT9,0 % NL9,6 %

Youth Guarantee  The Youth Guarantee seeks to ensure that all EU Member States make a good-quality offer to all young people up to age 25 of a job, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed.  The good-quality offer should be for a job, apprenticeship, traineeship, or continued education and be adapted to each individual need and situation.  The total estimated cost of establishing Youth Guarantee schemes in the Eurozone is €21bn a year, or 0.22% of GDP. However, inaction would be much more costly. Young people not in employment, education or training are estimated to cost the EU €153bn (1.21% of GDP) a year – in benefits and foregone earnings and taxes. (Source: Eurofound report on youth unemployment)

How it works?  The European Council has recommended that member states implement their youth guarantee schemes as soon as possible and ensure that they are properly integrated into EU programmes that re co-financed from the EU budget.  All member states drafted their youth guarantee implementation plans.  These plans set out how the youth guarantee scheme will be implemented at national level, the respective roles of public authorities and other organisations, how it will be financed, how progress will be monitored and the timetable.

 Significant EU financial instruments support the setting up of the Youth Guarantee in Member States - most notably from the European Social Fund and in the context of the so called Youth Employment Initiative.

ESF  The European Social Fund is part of the EU Structural and Investment Funds and is worth more than EUR 10 billion per year.  68% of the ESF budget goes towards projects in which young people could potentially be one of the target groups.  From 2007 until the end of 2013, over 25 million young people under 25 years benefited from the ESF through training or mentoring. In some countries, young people account for 40% or more of all participants.  ESF projects aim to keep young people in education by combating early school leaving and by providing opportunities for re-entry into formal training or education. Transition from school to work is facilitated through mentoring and personal advice, additional training and work placements, including traineeships and apprenticeships.

YEI  exclusively supports young people not in employment, education or training in regions experiencing youth unemployment rates above 25% (20 eligible Member States)  The YEI funding (€ 6,4 billion) comprises of:  € 3,2 bilion from a specific EU budget line dedicated to youth employment (frontloaded to )  € 3,2 bilion from the ESF allocations to the Member States for the programming period  YEI pre-financing in € 1 bilion (30% of the specific allocation instead of the original 1-1.5%)

Problems  Since Youth Guarantee isn't a law, its implementation relies on the willingness of the municipalities to act.  Huge differences between different municipalities  Not too much extra resources for implementing Youth Guarantee.  The communication of the guarantee hasn't been that great. Different stakeholders still remain unsure of their role in the implementation of the guarantee

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