Youth Policies And Unemployment In Europe

In Youth Policies and Unemployment in Europe Paola Giannoni analyses the situation of the European youth regarding the changes in the job market dynamics and the strategies implemented by the EU for the social inclusion of young people.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.Policymakers throughout Europe are enacting policies to support youth labour market integration. However, many young people continue to face unemployment, job insecurity, and the subsequent consequences.Adopting a mixed-method and multilevel perspective, this book provides a comprehensive investigation into the multifaceted consequences of social exclusion. Drawing on rich pan-European comparative and quantitative data, and interviews with young people from across Europe, this text gives a platform to the unheard voices of young people.Contributors derive crucial new policy recommendations and offer fresh insights into areas including youth well-being, health, poverty, leaving the parental home, and qualifying for social security.

Providing original insights into the factors causing early job insecurity in European countries, this book examines its short- and long-term consequences. It assesses public policies seeking to diminish the risks to young people facing prolonged job insecurity and reduce the severity of these impacts. Based on the findings of a major study across nine European countries, this book examines the diverse strategies that countries across the continent use to help young people overcome employment barriers.

Exacerbated by the Great Recession, youth transitions to employment and adulthood have become increasingly protracted, precarious, and differentiated by gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Youth Labor in Transition examines young people's integration into employment, alongside the decisions and consequences of migrating to find work and later returning home. The authors identify key policy challenges for the future related to NEETS, overeducation, self-employment, and ethnic differences in outcomes. This illustrates the need to encompass a wider understanding of youth employment and job insecurity by including an analysis of economic production and how it relates to social reproduction of labor if policy intervention is to be effective. The mapping and extensive analysis in this book are the result of a 3«-year, European Union-funded research project (Strategic Transitions for Youth Labour in Europe, or STYLE; http://www.style-research.eu) coordinated by Jacqueline O'Reilly. With an overall budget of just under 5 million euros and involving 25 research partners; an international advisory network and local advisory boards of employers, unions, and policymakers; and non-governmental organizations from more than 20 European countries, STYLE is one of the largest European Commission-funded research projects to exist on this topic. Consequently, this book will appeal to an array of audiences, including academic and policy researchers in sociology, political science, economics, management studies, and more particular labor market and social policy; policy communities; and bachelor's- and master's-level students in courses on European studies or any of the aforementioned subject areas.

This timely analysis examines the complex state of youth unemployment across Europe and offers cogent policy suggestions for addressing this longstanding societal problem. The findings reveal numerous national and regional factors affecting youth joblessness—not only market and economic challenges, but also deep sociocultural and political dynamics underlying the situations. Coverage details how the standard transition from school to work is disrupted in an already depressed adult job market, and compares a wide range of responses in terms of both young people’s educational decision-making and national youth policy. In particular, contributors assess whether the current crop of Youth Guarantee programs can/should be a model for employment policy across the continent. Among the topics covered: Youth labour market prospects and recent policy developments. Youth labour market in Central and Eastern Europe. Early school dropout in Spain: evolution during the Great Recession. Overeducation among European university graduates: a constraint or a choice? Promoting youth employment in Europe: evidence-based policy lessons. The evaluation of a Finnish youth guarantee: lessons for Europe? European Youth Labour Markets is of interest to an international audience of economists, sociologists, and leaders in governmental, non-profit, and corporate sectors through its broad and comparative macroeconomic focus and implications for policymaking, research, resource allocation, and policy evaluation.

With contributions from leading experts in the field, this book presents the findings of the first comparative study of unemployed youth in Europe.

"Young people are particularly vulnerable to fluctuations in economic trends. Youth employment is therefore high on the policy agenda of those concerned with promoting social inclusion. While youth-targeted employment policies tend to combine both demand-side and supply-side approaches, it is important to recognise that traditional notions of "work" have more recently been challenged and reconceptualised. The old assumptions about gender roles, "job security" and "planned careers" have thus been transformed by the profound economic and social changes of recent decades. The essays collected here were developed from papers first delivered at a research seminar on youth employment organised by the partnership between the Council of Europe and the European Commission in the field of youth. They represent a diverse and, at times, provocative collection of analytic snapshots of the position of young people on the European labour market. What emerges is a shared commitment to finding flexible responses to economic globalisation and a concomitant concern for promoting the rights, interests and welfare of young people in both training placement and in the workplace."--P. [4] of cover.

Greece is the 20th country to have had its youth policy reviewed by an international review team appointed by the Council of Europe. The financial crisis and resulting high unemployment rate, especially among young people, was the major concern encountered by the review team. Although the crisis has compelled Greece to engage in profound fiscal reform and address many of its structural weaknesses, this has not been matched by labour market activation policies and other youth policy measures needed to reverse the mood of despondency and stem the tide of emigration of young people. This international review focused in particular on two aspects of youth transitions: the transition from the education system to the labour market; and the related issue of military service and conscription, which is an integral part of life for young men in Greece. The review team also considered characteristics of the public administration, which dwells on bureaucratic compliance and has limited scope and licence for fostering initiative and creativity, despite incessant rhetoric about the need for “entrepreneurship”. The review team advocates the establishment of more creative and innovative mechanisms to free the entrepreneurial and participative spirit not only of young people in Greece, but also of its regional and local administrations, youth organisations and local youth councils, in order for them to provide timely and purposeful intervention, opportunity and support according to local need and circumstances.