The EU scheme to get young people into work or training within four months, the Youth Guarantee, is starting to reap rewards for young people across Europe. According to a report released today by the European Commission, 9 million young people have taken up an offer of a job or further training through the scheme. […]
Finally an answer to the hottest question of European youth today: How to make sure Juncker’s Investment Plan works for youth
July 15, 2015 by Leave a Comment
It was last month, on 25 June 2015, that the ETUC Youth Committee in collaboration with the European Youth Forum organised a rather stimulating conference at the European Economic and Social Committee called “Quality jobs creation for young people: what, how and when?” The Sting was there, attended the conference with interest and at the end made a […]
The 28 EU leaders care more about fiscal orthodoxy than effectively fighting youth unemployment
March 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last week the European Court of Auditors (ECA) published a report on the “risks to the successful implementation of the EU Youth Guarantee”. The ECA review, while noting that according to the Commission the available funding for this much advertised EU project is estimated at €16.7 billion for the 2014-2020 period including national resources, it […]
European Youth Forum on Summit on Jobs and Growth
October 9, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Date: 8th October 2014 The European Youth Forum regrets the lack of clarity and confusion regarding the heads of states Summit on Jobs and Growth taking place today in Milan. We are deeply disappointed not to see youth employment as the main focus of this summit, as was originally planned. We do welcome the attention on […]
European Youth Forum @ European Business Summit 2014: European Youth Unemployment
May 8, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Written by Giuseppe Porcaro, Secretary General of the European Youth Forum It cannot have escaped anyone’s notice that youth unemployment is a huge, sometimes seemingly intractable problem that has now menaced this continent’s society for several years. Whilst many other sectors of society are moving out of the economic crisis and unemployment as a whole […]
JADE @ European Business Summit 2014: Youth Unemployment – a drive to Entrepreneurship
May 6, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Written by Florentina Anghel, European Public Affairs Manager at JADE Youth unemployment is one of the most discussed topics nowadays, all major policy makers having this issue as top priority for the upcoming years strategy. Moreover, students became more and more concerned about their future career and try to act proactively, by getting involved in […]
The true EU unemployment rate may have soared to 21.9%
April 11, 2014 by Leave a Comment
On top of the 26.2 million of the unemployed, averaging at 12% of EU’s working age population, there is another 10 million of underemployed par-timers who want to work more but they don’t find employment, plus 11.5 million more of working age persons who are available to work but not seeking (9.3 million) or seeking […]
The Brussels bureaucracy blocks the Youth Guarantee scheme
April 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The fate of the Youth Guarantee scheme, constituted to help the under 25s to get a job or a training within four months after leaving the education system, is very characteristic of the importance attached to labour matters by the European decision makers and the Brussels bureaucracy in particular. According to the European Economic and […]
Youth unemployment: No light at the end of the tunnel
April 8, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Last Friday the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) held a public hearing on the implementation of European Union policies to counter youth employment. EESC is a consultative body made up by representatives of Europe’s socio-occupational interest groups and others (employers, workers and various interest groups). It gives its members a platform to express their […]
Commission: Gifts of €6 billion and free trainees to ‘help’ poor employers
December 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
This newspaper feels fully vindicated after yesterday’s announcement issued by the European Commission, stating that the EU’s executive arm is proposing a Council recommendation which will institutionalise a Quality Framework for Traineeships. This was a badly needed decision in view of the upcoming application of the widely advertised €6 billion Youth Guarantee scheme, which promises […]
Statistics show the ugly face of youth training schemes
November 28, 2013 by 2 Comments
Thank God Eurostat, the EU statistical service and the Eurobarometer surveys, are still there and can produce reports refuting some commonly accepted pseudo-truths. Of course statisticians can also lie but it’s easy to expose them, while it’s much more difficult to expose the lies commonly used by politicians. A characteristic example is traineeships. This is […]
A sterilised EMU may lead to a break up of Eurozone
November 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Ahead of the ‘The European Employment Forum’ which takes place in Brussels today and tomorrow and according to its organisers is ‘the annual networking forum for everyone involved in employment and enterprise within the EU and beyond’, there was an increased activity over the burning issue of jobs and unemployment in Europe. To this effect, […]
Does the Commission subsidise a forced labour scheme in Britain?
October 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The British Supreme Court in London upheld yesterday a Court of Appeal decision that the government’s heavily advertised ‘model’ programme, “back to work”, designed to ‘help’ the unemployed to find a job, or training or apprenticeship, is illegal and therefore has to be stopped or substantially changed. The scheme requires that the young unemployed should […]
Civil society organisations disenchanted with “Youth Guarantee”
July 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Since 2008, when the EU financial crisis first broke out, 1000 young people join every day the ranks of the unemployed, according to the European Economic and Social Committee. The EESC issued recently a note strongly criticising the Commission’s proposal entitled “Youth Guarantee project”. This proposal was adopted by the European Council of the 27+1 […]
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