Youth Unemployment in Europe: a Generation With No Prospects?

Youth unemployment in the European Union, and especially in Southern European, is shockingly high. This not only directly impacts the economic situation of the youths concerned, but also has major implications for their future careers. Is a “lost generation” in the making that will find it tough to gain a foothold in the labour market, even later on in life? For Joachim Möller, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nuremberg, and University of Regensburg, the dramatic increase in youth unemployment cannot be explained by a change in structural factors. Instead, the plight of today's youths is due to general weakness in the labour market, which is also reflected in the unemployment rate of the remainder of the working population. It is therefore advisable to adopt a dual strategy: measures to improve competitiveness and the labour market structures in crisis-afflicted countries need to be complemented by an increase in aggregate demand in order to promote the creation and preservation of jobs. Gerhard Bosch, University of Duisburg-Essen, highlights the failure of the EU's assistance programmes, which have not been able to noticeably reduce high youth unemployment in Southern and Eastern Europe to date. According to Günther Schmid, formerly FU Berlin, those countries with high or shockingly high youth unemployment need to strengthen their institutional capacity to build up dual education systems. Jörg Schmidt, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft Cologne, thinks that it is too early to speak of a lost generation of youths in Europe. Although the comparatively high youth unemployment rates in several Southern European states are worrying, there is scope to reform many institutional regulations order to combat these problems, especially in the area of (professional) education systems, as well as in dismissal protection and minimum wage regulations. Jörg Asmussen, German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, sees several successes in combatting youth unemployment in Europe in recent years. However, one in five young Europeans seeking work still cannot find a job. Measures should include reinforcing professional education systems through modernisation, revamping public employment services and making it easier for individuals to start-up new business.