On 19 September 2024, the Hungarian EU Presidency organized, in the framework of the informal Employment Committee (EMCO) meeting, a conference on "The latest challenges in mobilizing youth labour supply in the EU and the neighbourhood - the Reinforced Youth Guarantee". The conference aimed at showcasing the Hungarian national Youth Guarantee Plus Programme and other comparable regional experiences. Participants included Mr Sangheon LEE, Director of the ILO Employment Policy, Job Creation and Livelihoods department, Ms Manuela Geleng, Director for Skills and Jobs, European Commission, Mr Sándor Czomba, Minister of State for Employment Policy, Ministry for National Economy, Hungary, international and Hungarian stakeholders, educational and labour market experts and academics.
Over 10 years from the adoption of the EU Council Recommendation on the establishment of a Youth Guarantee, many lessons have been learnt and are now guiding a new generation of Youth Guarantee schemes. In 2008, at the onset of the global economic crisis, young Europeans were on average twice less likely to be employed compared to adults (the employment-to-population ratio was 37.3 per cent and 72 per cent, respectively), over twice more likely to be unemployed (with an unemployment rate of 15.6 per cent for young people and six per cent for adults) and nearly four times more likely to be engaged in temporary work (40.2 per cent for young workers and 11.3 per cent for adult workers).
The delink between the education and training system and the labour market, making the school to work transition long and arduous, labour market segmentation between young and adult workers; and insufficient investment in labour market and social protection policies caused this situation.
The economic crisis worsened the already fragile labour market position of young people. Youth unemployment peaked at 23.7 per cent in 2013, with Croatia, Greece, Italy and Spain recording annual rates exceeding 40 per cent. In the same year, the youth employment-to-population ratio dropped to 32.1 per cent, the lowest ratio ever recorded at EU level.
The EU response was the adoption of a Council Recommendation in April 2013, following which all EU member States rolled out Youth Guarantee (YG) schemes at the national level in 2014.
From the very beginning, the ILO provided guidance and technical assistance to several EU member States (Italy, Spain, Latvia, Portugal, among others) for the implementation of the YG through the EC-ILO Joint Action on Youth Employment (2015-2017).
Beyond the EU, in 2017, the Government of North Macedonia also decided to establish a YG scheme. Right before the introduction of the YG, North Macedonia was in the process of implementing the second National Action Plan for Youth Employment, considered as a top policy priority, given that the country had been facing youth unemployment rates over 39 per cent (twice the rate recorded in the European Union), mostly long-term (over 77 per cent of young unemployed had been searching for a job for more than a year). The ILO provided technical assistance to Macedonian constituents in designing a roadmap encompassing key policy reforms and initiatives required to set up and implement the YG. The YG was piloted starting in 2018 based on North Macedonia's first Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan (YGIP).
In 2020, aggregate results for the EU indicated that, taken together, YG schemes did not yet reach most young NEETs and, for many of the registered youth, it took longer than the foreseen four months to start their offer. Many young people, often from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, did not have access to quality education and training or faced barriers in their transition from school to work. Gains in employment had not been evenly distributed among Member States and regions, and certain groups of the young population were at a disproportionate disadvantage (e.g. those with low skills, living in rural areas or remote areas, young people with disabilities, from migrant backgrounds or belonging to racial and ethnic minorities).
While the rate of young unemployed had decreased on average between 2014 and early 2020, the rate of inactive young people remained stable or even increased in most EU member States.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and based on the findings emerging from the EMCO reports on the YG implementation, the Commission introduced a proposal for a new Council Recommendation to reinforce the Youth Guarantee. The objective was to help alleviating the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and preventing another youth unemployment crisis. The proposal built on the experience and lessons learnt of 7 years of implementation of the YG and integrated the changing realities of the labour market as well as the digital and green transitions.
The 2020 Recommendation reinforced the Youth Guarantee by:
- reaffirming the commitment of the EU countries to set up national schemes through which young people can receive a quality offer of employment, continued education, traineeship or apprenticeship within a period of 4 months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education
- placing new emphasis on the criteria defining the quality of offers provided to young people registered in the YG
- extending the age limit for targeted young people from 25 to up to 29 years and providing for better inclusion of persons who may be in vulnerable circumstances, such as young women and persons with disabilities.
In addition, the 2020 Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans (EIP), which focused on long-term economic recovery, a green and digital transition, regional integration, and convergence with the European Union, recommended that Western Balkan governments should establish or expand YG schemes in line with the EU Youth Guarantee.
In July 2021, the Western Balkans (WB) governments endorsed a Declaration aimed at ensuring the sustainable integration of young people into the labour market and pledged to gradually establish, implement, and enhance YG schemes in line with the EU Council Recommendation of 30 October 2020: "A Bridge to Jobs - Reinforcing the Youth Guarantee", which replaced the Council Recommendation of 2013 on establishing a Youth Guarantee.
In 2021, the ILO, in partnership with the European Commission and in close collaboration with the European Training Foundation (ETF), established the EU-ILO Technical Assistance Facility for the implementation of the Youth Guarantee in the Western Balkans (TAF). The TAF aims to support Western Balkan economies in developing, piloting, and fully implementing the Youth Guarantee (YG), in line with EU good practices and following the policy principles enshrined in the relevant EU Council Recommendations. The EU-ILO TAF was renewed for a third phase starting in September 2024, enabling the ILO to continue accompanying the Western Balkan economies to achieve key milestones along the path set in the EU Council Recommendation. The Recommendation is part of chapter 19 of the EU acquis (soft acquis) and embedded in the European Pillar of Social Rights which is the EU framework for social policies.
By the end of 2023, three Western Balkan economies (Albania, Kosovo*, and Serbia) had adopted their first YGIPs and were moving into implementation of pilot schemes, while North Macedonia adopted its third YGIP. In the summer of 2024, Montenegro also adopted a YGIP and Bosnia and Herzegovina is expected to complete this process in early 2025 at the latest.
Building and expanding on the wide range of tools that were developed to support the EU member States, the ILO plays a crucial role in providing technical assistance to the Western Balkan economies and facilitating the realization of the YG policy principles, such as universal reach, policy coherence, quality and timeliness of offers, interaction between prevention and remedial policies, continuous monitoring, and partnership. These principles reflect the ILO's own approach to an integrated employment policy framework, rooted in a rights-based approach and international labour standards.
"The fact that Hungarian EU Presidency organized this session on the side of the informal Employment Committee (EMCO) meeting to share their experience with the Youth Guarantee shows that this policy framework has a steep learning curve and new opportunities for countries to learn from one another are welcome," said Mr. Lee. "The implementation of Youth Guarantee schemes may be a tall order for countries that are in the accession process and need to approximate the EU acquis. My recommendation would be to remain focused on the key policy principles underpinning the Youth Guarantee. As ILO, we offer steadfast support to our constituents to make these policy principles a reality in each country in which we operate, even beyond the European neighbourhood", he added.
