Youth Guarantee

The ETUC regrets that the potential of the Youth Guarantee as the main policy tool to fight rising youth unemployment has not been fully realised. The ETUC calls on the Member States to step up their efforts to implement the reinforced Youth Guarantee, including quality training that promotes integration into the labour market, and calls on the European Commission to provide an overview of the steps taken to implement the Council Recommendations on the Reinforced Youth Guarantee at the national level and to ensure effective synergies with the NRRPs.

Youth Guarantee, the only policy that tried to tackle youth employment in a lot of Member States, has not succeeded to limit the development of precarious work during the last decade. It has been used by some Member States to hide unemployment figures, by offering low-quality traineeship. The rise of precariousness among young people is facilitated by the absence of social protection for many of them. Without any income, young people accept any offer of temporary or precarious employment and obtain a permanent contract at an older age than the previous generations.

The Youth Guarantee, newly financed by the ESF+, with an obligation to spend a minimum of 12% of the funds in the Member States with a higher NEET rate than the EU average, remains the main tool for combatting youth unemployment in the EU. The Council Recommendation on how to strengthen the programme, adopted in October 2020, includes a list of measures on how to ensure the quality of what is offered under the programme, how to improve outreach and how to strengthen the monitoring of the outcome for better evaluation of the programme.

 

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  • 15.02.2021 Press release

    Survey highlights plight of young people in pandemic

    ETUC Youth - Time for Quality Jobs
    11 months after the start of the pandemic, young trade union leaders say that young unemployed, those neither in employment or education or training, and workers in platform companies are not being helped enough by job and wage protection schemes and related emergency measures. These findings will be presented today to Commissioner Nicolas Schmit and the Portuguese President of EU Council of Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Ministers, Ana Mendes Godinho at an online conference ‘(How) Will Europe prevent a Lost Generation?’ attended by over 200 young people.
  • 30.10.2020 Document

    ETUC statement on Youth

    Time for Quality Jobs
    The COVID-19 pandemic and its social and economic repercussions have hit young people in Europe particularly hard. The latest Eurostat figures show skyrocketing youth unemployment figures across the EU: In August 2020, 43,9 % young people aged between 15-24 years in Spain were unemployed, 39,3 % in Italy and 32,1 % in Greece. The EU average lies at 17,6%.
  • 29.04.2020 Document

    Youth Guarantee: The momentum for quality jobs is now!

    28/04/2020 : Letter to the European Commission on the Youth Guarantee  Dear President von der Leyen, Dear Commissioner Schmit, In recent weeks every aspect of our life as we know it has been turned around. The European Union is once again under scrutiny and we are under strong pressure to demonstrate to the citizens that it can offer strategies on how to overcome the consequences of the pandemic.
  • 17.12.2018 Publication

    Boosting unions’ participation to guarantee quality transitions and employment to young people in Europe

    Cover of the report "Boosting unions’ participation to guarantee quality transitions and employment to young people in Europe"
    This report of the ETUC and its Youth Committee contributes to the following aims: Need for a pool of systematic knowledge on what is happening at European and national levels in implementation of EU youth employment policies, with a focus on trade union involvement; provision of comparable cross-national information on existing practices of trade union involvement in EU youth employment policies; creation of a practical toolbox (recommendations) on trade union involvement in youth employment policies.
  • 04.04.2017 Press release

    ETUC backs Court of Auditors on Youth Guarantee

    The European Court of Auditors (ECA) today launched a report on youth unemployment pointing out the little progress made by the EU Youth Guarantee and the insufficient contribution of the Youth Employment Initiative in the Member States visited. ETUC agrees with many findings and recommendations of the report
  • 31.10.2016 Press release

    ETUC research shows EU must do more to tackle youth unemployment

    The EU’s Youth Guarantee has not done enough to help young people into work in Europe, states a new report from the European Trade Union Confederation. 
 
 ETUC Youth have assessed progress since the Youth Guarantee was launched in 2013, and call for higher investment and more commitment from employers and national governments. 
 
  • 28.10.2016 Publication

    3 Years of Youth Guarantee: What next ? A follow-up report by the ETUC Youth Committee

    The Youth Guarantee (YG) is, at the moment of writing this follow-up report, high in the agenda of the European institutions. Indeed, important decisions are being taken regarding the future of the measure, its future funding and further implementation. The ETUC pushed EU institutions for the launch of the Youth Guarantee and welcomed its implementation. The establishment of such a guarantee in Europe was advocated by the ETUC and the ETUC Youth Committee as early as 2009 in its call “Towards a new social deal in Europe: Fight the crisis, put people first”.
  • 04.10.2016 Press release

    Funds for youth employment don't match the good intentions

    Google / CC
    Commenting on European Commissioner Marianne Thyssen’s proposals – announced today -  for tackling youth unemployment, the European Trade Union Confederation warned that the funds did not match the good intentions.
  • 20.10.2013 Document

    ETUC Manifesto on the European Parliament Elections

    Brussels, 22-23/10/2013 For quality jobs, equality and democracy in Europe! From 22 to 25 May 2014, elections will be organised in each Member State of the European Union (EU) to elect the MEPs who will sit in the next European Parliament (EP). In particular, the European Parliament has the power to approve or reject European laws, decide on the European budget and choose the President of the European Commission.