“The communiqué from the European Union Social Summit in Porto in May set out the headline target of having 78 per cent of Europeans aged 20 to 64 in employment by 2030—fully 5 percentage points more than pre-pandemic.
As the key measure to achieve this, the European Commission and most member-state governments look to active-labour-market policies (ALMPs). Despite decades of experience, however, there is little empirical evidence to indicate their effectiveness or value.“
All EU countries have presented comprehensive Youth Guarantee Implementation Plans, complying with the deadlines set by the European Council.
The plans identify precisely the measures to be taken to implement the Youth Guarantee. They outline the timeframe for youth employment reforms and measures, the roles of public authorities and other organisations, and how it will be financed.
Please see the country fiches for a detailed assessment of the Youth Guarantee implementation in each country.
Canadian tradesmen from a huge oilsands construction project are waving a red flag about safety hazards and near misses, which they blame on the use of foreign workers who aren’t qualified and can’t speak English.
“When you bring in a bunch of workers who are unqualified to do this job it’s only a matter of time before you kill someone,” said Les Jennings, who was an ironworker supervisor at the Husky Sunrise plant until a few weeks ago, when he quit in frustration.
The study Mapping youth transitions in Europe by the tripartite body of the EU states that countries with a higher integration of school and work, through apprenticeship programmes or through more young people effectively combining school and early labour market experiences, display a smoother and quicker transition from school to work.
According to Eurostat, the best school-to-work transitions are the ‘Nordic’ and the ‘Apprenticeship’ (found in Austria and Germany) models.
The Commission believes that “coding is the literacy of today” as every interaction on computers is governed by code. Basic coding skills will also be needed for many jobs in the near future and more than 90% of professional occupations nowadays require some ICT competence, though the number of graduates in computer science is not keeping pace with this demand for skills.
According to the report, low-skilled migrants also have their place in Europe’s labour markets, as allow for the employment of natives in highly-skilled occupations and compensate for shortages of low-skilled workers in industries where they are needed.
“The more immigration you have the less unemployment you have and this is mainly for two reasons; because migrants are attracted by employment and because they adapt to the situation. When unemployment increases too much they try to find a solution for themselves and perhaps they will leave also.” said Migration Policy Centre’s director Philippe Fargues.
…the sectors with most growth in employment, health and education, are primarily dominated by women, and tend to have jobs with higher hourly pay rates.
Youth unemployment has been Europe’s most pressing issue over the past years. What is your assessment of the situation?
I think the role the EU can play here is helping bring growth back. I think the only way and the best way Europe can do this is by developing a single market. The single market has been a success and needs to be developed further.
But I don’t think that social mechanisms or structural funds will help anything. 28 different countries have been hit differently by the crisis and I think the way out must be an individual solution for each country. A European solution is not the good approach; it needs to be dealt with in different ways.
So programmes like the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) are not helping Danish youngsters who are looking for a job?
I haven’t heard of anyone using the programme. I think things like the Guarantee schemes only work if you have you can turn it into something of value and I don’t think that is the case with these structures. I think it is more of a politician’s solution to say they’ve done something.
Would I end the programmes? Well, I think it is always a good goal for politicians that we have to find ways to increase jobs. I just don’t believe that it is a politician’s job to actually create jobs. That is up to the private sector. The only way to create this is to have a healthy private sector.
COOPERATIVE CHERNOMORKA BURGAS
Ten years before, due to the European support through the PHARE pre-accession Programme and the European Social Fund we started to modernise our businesses and to adapt our working environment to the special needs of people with disabilities.
Our main goal is to provide jobs to disabled people from the town and the region and to support their social integration with a special emphasis on the integration of disabled women.
“The most important reason for the persistently weak economic activity in Italy,” Mr. Wagner said, “are the country’s enormous structural problems, such as the rigid labor market, wages that are rising too quickly, high taxes for businesses and inefficient public administration.”
Italy Falls Back Into Recession, Raising Concern for Eurozone Economy
Lifelong Career 