Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Young, educated and jobless

Karola Klatt 27th June 2019

A decade after the onset of the global crisis, youth unemployment remains high in many industrialised countries. But it’s not an act of nature.

youth unemployment

Karola Klatt

The International Labour Organization (ILO), which marks its centenary this year, shone a spotlight on young people’s opportunities for work with a panel discussion at its recent anniversary conference. At the event, young academics from the middle east, Africa and Latin America probed the causes of the high global rate of youth unemployment.

The issue is not however confined to the countries of the global south, home to a large proportion of its young cohorts. In many industrialised countries youth unemployment is also above the world average of 11.8 per cent.

Indeed, in the wake of the financial and economic crisis, youth unemployment has skyrocketed in almost all industrialised countries, especially in southern Europe. When the impact on the labour market peaked in Italy in 2014, 42.7 percent of 14-25-year-old job-seekers were without work. In Spain, the figure was as high as 55.5 percent in 2013, while it stood at 58.3 percent in Greece in the same year.

The good news is that, since this spike, youth joblessness has receded, in some countries significantly. The bad news is that it remains far too high.

Intensify efforts

In the latest EU Social Justice Index 2017, published by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, the authors urge member states to intensify their efforts to combat youth unemployment by ‘improving vocational training, further reducing the number of early school-leavers, and better facilitating the transition from the education system into the labor market. There is frequently a great discrepancy between the demands of the labor market and the skills made available by the education system.’

Failing to secure a job means young adults face a hurdle right at the start of their independent lives. They remain reliant on their parents, boosting feelings of exclusion and helplessness.

It is a political as well as economic challenge, as those lacking prospects often veer towards extremist and populist movements. Anti-democratic attitudes commonly emerge from a context of personal crises: a sense of being socially excluded and an inability to improve one’s lot often triggers a rejection of the ruling system.

In Spain, Italy and Greece, every third young job-seeker is still struggling to find work. In 2017, in 13 of the 41 OECD and EU countries whose policies were compared by the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI), youth unemployment was above 15 per cent.

Indeed, the latter group included Finland (20.1 percent)—highly praised for its school education—and Sweden (17.9 percent), which is the leader in the SGI economic-policy ranking. In its 2018 report on Sweden, the SGI country experts noted that ‘there has been extensive debate about introducing an apprentice model to help younger age cohorts to make the transition from education to the labor market’.

Dual system

Switzerland, Norway and Germany have however not witnessed a dramatic increase in youth unemployment in the aftermath of the crisis. One reason for this, according to experts, is the success of the dual training system which is particularly important in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

In Germany, young people and young adults gain hands-on experience of their future professions in companies, while completing the theoretical part of their training in vocational schools. Ideally, trainees should be taken on by the training company after their apprenticeship. Where this is not possible, they can use the experience gained during their apprenticeship to apply to other companies, thus easing their transition to working life.

Many industrialised countries have no comparable training system but only offer school-based vocational training or, alternatively, on-the-job training. Even in the vast majority of countries where in-company vocational training and school-based vocational training coexist, training within a firm is often viewed as less important than its school-based equivalent.

Overall, the countries with a relatively high proportion of apprentices, such as Germany, Austria, Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, have significantly fewer problems with youth unemployment than countries with a low supply of them, such as Belgium, France, Spain or Italy.

Success factors

Among measures adopted by the EU in 2012 to combat high youth unemployment are transforming attitudes to vocational training and supporting reform of training systems to improve the quality of vocational training and the supply of training places. But success does not depend solely on the commitment of companies to practical training: a comparative country study by several German foundations and institutes also identified flexibility of training content, target-group diversity, high-quality vocational guidance and promotion of national and international mobility.

The ILO’s Global Commission on the Future of Work recommends that ageing societies co-operate more with countries with younger populations on vocational training, because this would benefit the labor market overall. In addition, governments should improve youth opportunities through employment programmes and the promotion of entrepreneurship. The organisation emphasises the private sector’s responsibility to provide young people with a quality education and a first job, as well as the need for policy-makers to ensure social fairness and avoid the exploitation of the young as cheap labour.

Above all, for young people and young adults, work means more than just economic independence. It provides a sense of meaning—forging identities, networks and opportunities. Withholding all this from young people is a recipe for disaster.

This article was translated from German by Jess Smee.

Karola Klatt

Karola Klatt is a science journalist and editor of SGI News and the Bertelsmann Stiftung's BTI Blog.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u4219834664e04a 8a1e 4ee0 a6f9 bbc30a79d0b1 2 Closing the Chasm: Central and Eastern Europe’s Continued Minimum Wage ClimbCarlos Vacas-Soriano and Christine Aumayr-Pintar
u421983467f bb39 37d5862ca0d5 0 Ending Britain’s “Brief Encounter” with BrexitStefan Stern
u421983485 2 The Future of American Soft PowerJoseph S. Nye
u4219834676d582029 038f 486a 8c2b fe32db91c9b0 2 Trump Can’t Kill the Boom: Why the US Economy Will Roar Despite HimNouriel Roubini
u42198346fb0de2b847 0 How the Billionaire Boom Is Fueling Inequality—and Threatening DemocracyFernanda Balata and Sebastian Mang

Most Popular Articles

startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer
u421983467 2a24 4c75 9482 03c99ea44770 3 Trump’s Trade War Tears North America Apart – Could Canada and Mexico Turn to Europe?Malcolm Fairbrother
u4219834676e2a479 85e9 435a bf3f 59c90bfe6225 3 Why Good Business Leaders Tune Out the Trump Noise and Stay FocusedStefan Stern
u42198346 4ba7 b898 27a9d72779f7 1 Confronting the Pandemic’s Toxic Political LegacyJan-Werner Müller
u4219834676574c9 df78 4d38 939b 929d7aea0c20 2 The End of Progess? The Dire Consequences of Trump’s ReturnJoseph Stiglitz

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
How are minimum wage levels changing in Europe?

In a new Eurofound Talks podcast episode, host Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound expert Carlos Vacas Soriano about recent changes to minimum wages in Europe and their implications.

Listeners can delve into the intricacies of Europe's minimum wage dynamics and the driving factors behind these shifts. The conversation also highlights the broader effects of minimum wage changes on income inequality and gender equality.

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.


READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

KU Leuven advertisement

The Politics of Unpaid Work

This new book published by Oxford University Press presents the findings of the multiannual ERC research project “Researching Precariousness Across the Paid/Unpaid Work Continuum”,
led by Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), which are very important for the prospects of a more equal Europe.

Unpaid labour is no longer limited to the home or volunteer work. It infiltrates paid jobs, eroding rights and deepening inequality. From freelancers’ extra hours to care workers’ unpaid duties, it sustains precarity and fuels inequity. This book exposes the hidden forces behind unpaid labour and calls for systemic change to confront this pressing issue.

DOWNLOAD HERE FOR FREE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

What kind of impact is artificial intelligence (AI) having, or likely to have, on the way we work and the conditions we work under? Discover the latest issue of HesaMag, the ETUI’s health and safety magazine, which considers this question from many angles.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641