Are we consigning a whole generation of young people to insecurity and unemployment?

With youth unemployment ranging from 7.5% in Germany to 54% in Spain, conventional wisdom places the blame for high youth unemployment on changes in the labour  market, and employers say young people lack the right skills.  It is a desperate situation.

UK think tank IPPR has therefore been looking at what works and what doesn’t work in getting young people into jobs.  There is a wide variation of experience across Europe, reflecting not just the economic cycle but also differing institutional set-ups and different policy responses.  In order to learn what might make a difference, they have looked at the following features in Spain, Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the USA and drawn comparisons:

• Youth unemployment trends
• The labour market
• Education, training and workforce development
• The social safety net
• Job training and employment services for youth

The transition from education to full-time employment is managed in a variety of
ways in different European countries, and no one country has got every aspect of it
right. Drawing comparisons between countries, therefore, is a good way of identifying ways to improve the transition from education to work.

Current youth unemployment rates vary considerably across the five countries analysed in this report. The lowest rate is found in Germany, where youth unemployment is 7.5 per cent and the recession has had no discernible effect on it. This is widely attributed to Germany’s ‘dual system’ of vocational education and training. The US (14 per cent), France (26 per cent) and, most alarmingly, Spain (54 per cent) have far higher rates and there have been considerable and fairly consistent increases over the last six years. The Netherlands, having successfully avoided a rise in the immediate aftermath of the financial crash, has also seen a substantial increase in youth unemployment in the last two years – although the rate there is still relatively low at 11 per cent.

Download the IPPR report,States of transition: Youth unemployment, education and labour market policy in Europe and the US, here

Tags: business and industry, economy, education, employment, Europe, jobs, training and skills, young people, youth unemployment