The Youth Guarantee in Europe State of implementation from a trade union perspective

Transcription

1 Policy Brief Youth Guarantee The Youth Guarantee in Europe State of implementation from a trade union perspective In 2014, on average nearly 22% of all young people in Europe aged between 15 and 24 were unemployed. In some countries, this figure was even higher, with over half of all young people being affected. Young people across Europe, who represent the future of Europe, are calling on all the relevant parties to take action. Young people want to be taken seriously, to participate and to have future prospects. A study by the ETUC on the Youth Guarantee has pinpointed a number of its weaknesses. Offering precarious jobs is not the solution to the ongoing unemployment crisis. IndustriAll is one of several trade union federations to have signed up to the back2ourfuture campaign to tackle youth unemployment issues. Click here to go the campaign website. Funding and goals In February 2013, the European Council proposed the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI), which is a programme offering short-term finance for measures to tackle the problem of rising youth unemployment in Europe. The 6 billion budget for the period from 2014 to 2015 is made up of 3 billion from the YEI and funding from the European Social Fund (ESF). While the funds under the YEI are meant to be used to pre-finance projects without any commitment of own project resources, the funding from the ESF needs to be matched with co-funding from national resources depending on the GDP of the country in question. The YEI funding should also ensure that countries will also finance midand long-term labour market policies with national resources. Overall, the ESF has allocated 80 billion for the financing of training, further education, job creation, social inclusion and improving public services for the period from 2014 to The funding under the YEI is meant to be allocated in 2014 and 2015 in order to achieve results in the short term and get young people into employment. The main aim is to finance and implement measures in the Youth Employment Package (YEP) and its flagship project, the Youth Guarantee (YG). In concrete terms, individual employment will be the main area to be financed via subsidised traineeships or apprenticeships, the provision of first jobs for young people, mobility programmes or second chance education. The funds from the YEI should not be used either to develop or improve existing public employment services, e.g. education and further education structures, or for the starting up/development of such activities. Such administrative structures are as important for the success of the programme as the measures themselves, particularly to ensure the sustainability of the Youth Guarantee and its funding. NEETs aged between 15 and 24 years, annual data by activity status Target group The funds are particularly targeted at regions that have youth unemployment rates for young people aged 15 to 24 of more than 25% and where the young people are not in employment, education or training (NEET). Regions of EU member states that registered either an increase of more than 30% in youth unemployment or a youth unemployment

2 rate of more than 20% in 2012 are also eligible to receive funding. Unemployment rate young people aged between 15 and 24 and adults aged between 25 and 64, annual data NEETs are a very heterogeneous group. They can be divided into two sub-groups which, on closer inspection, can be used to draw more precise conclusions as to how the funds can be spent in the most targeted way. The first group consists of young people who are not in employment, education or training and who are not actively seeking a job (inactive). The second group are those seeking employment (i.e. job seekers). For the latter group, providing support for job hunting or finding a retraining course which offers urgently needed qualifications/skills can offer a quick-fix solution so long as there are jobs on offer. If NEETs are inactive, it is worth carrying out a more detailed assessment as this does not necessarily mean that young people are unwilling to work or to further educate themselves. Dividing NEETs into a younger group aged between 15 and 24 and an older group aged between 25 and 29 makes it possible to draw more precise conclusions about the situation of young people in these age groups. For the older group of NEETs (i.e. 25 to 29 year olds), the education sector is often not an alternative because employment is seen as more important and often family planning issues are a bigger issue for them than for the younger age group. They could be single parents or on parental leave, making it therefore quite remarkable that there are more women in the older group and more men in the younger group. For the younger age group, the fact that they have an interim NEET status can also be explained by the fact that they are in the midst of making the transition from education to the job market. Structures Due to the different needs young people have at this phase in their lives, the most appropriate response would seem to be with targeted regional approaches and the provision of in situ help for young people as early as possible. That is why it is important to have efficient administrative structures at local and regional level, which are able to access and use the funds provided by the YEI. It is striking that those regions with a lack of administrative structures will usually have above average levels of young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs). Making funds available is therefore only one part of the issue. Having administrations that run smoothly and have the know-how and the equipment to access and use the funds is the other key part. Often the administrations are especially affected by cost-cutting measures or tax cuts and suffer from a lack of staff, a lack of training or are simply not tailored to meet young people s needs. It is important to give countries the right level of financial flexibility to fund such structures sufficiently. The opportunity offered by YEI lies in its flexibility and the variety of plans and measures that can be implemented to meet the respective regional demands. It can provide incentives to start longterm programmes, test pilot projects or to support these and later continue to fund them from national budgets. The interface between the education system and the job market or the welfare system and the job market offers golden opportunities for reorganising and restructuring in order to make the transitions for young people into the workplace smoother. However, for this to 2

3 happen, there needs to be a flexible national framework alongside the regional programmes, which ensures a fair redistribution and similar activities for all the young people taking part in the programmes. Sustainability While the funding of short-term labour market programmes with money from the YEI is important, it cannot replace national budgets with regard to the sustainable long-term development and employment of young people. In that respect, it seems unbalanced if the European Council proposes a purely supply-side labour market programme while at the same time neglecting the demand side at national and European level. This is emphasised by the fiscal conditions of the Troika (European Commission, International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank), which are leading to cuts in the national budgets of precisely those countries that are suffering from the highest levels of youth unemployment in the EU (e.g. Greece, Cyprus or Portugal). The Youth Guarantee is ideally positioned between the school system, the welfare system and the labour market. The success and implementation of the Youth Guarantee measures depend on the synergies between those involved in the school system, the labour market (private and public), the social welfare systems and youth and social policy. If the actions of any of these stakeholders are restricted by fiscal rules, this will undermine the effectiveness of the Youth Guarantee measures. Cuts in teaching jobs in the public sector will mean that there will be fewer teachers available to teach the YEI-funded further education programmes. Since the outbreak of the crisis between 2008 and 2011, 16 EU member states have made cuts in their education budgets, with six more EU member states following suit in These were often as a result of requirements that were imposed by the EU institutions. Those who expect to increase efficiency by making cuts in the education sector must willingly accept that they are denying future generations the same opportunities to take part in society. This is especially true for those young people who are most urgently in need of support, such as young people from low-income families or young immigrants. Cuts in public services or in the welfare system will also have a similar impact. Underfunding and staff reductions in job centres or reductions in social security benefits will seriously jeopardise the long-term use of programmes such as the Youth Guarantee. Precarious working conditions Both pre- and post 2008, the number of temporary contracts rose in 20 of the 28 EU member states and by 2012, 42.1% of all employment contracts at European level were temporary. The rates of transition from temporary to permanent employment contracts and of recruitment of young people following the completion of further education have been steadily declining. Promoting bogus self-employment or subsidised internships will put young people in the same precarious situation as a lack of follow-up programmes or a relaxation of minimum standards relating to collectively agreed notice periods. Indeed, the Youth Employment Package and the Youth Employment Initiative provide a certain framework for accepted projects such as the quality of the funded job offers, the target groups, the timeframes, the alternative paths available or the mutual obligations. The trend towards an increase in precarious working conditions amongst young people can be observed despite these minimum standards. The ETUC study clearly shows the need for reform and the national trade unions also point out that the programmes must not be used as an underhand way of forcing young people into precarious working conditions. Relevance of challenges - Government and Trade Unions (trade unions perceptions) 3

4 The long-term costs of precarious employment to national economies and their welfare systems are difficult to predict. What is clear, however, is that those who cannot pay social security contributions or can only pay small amounts will later be dependent on help from the state, which again will involve subsequent costs. Demographic trends and health, retirement and long-term nursing care insurance-related issues can only be dealt with in a sustainable way if people are in a position to be able to finance these themselves, by having stable, well-paid jobs. It makes no difference whether these issues are funded from tax revenue or privately. Young people with continuously precarious working conditions tend to wait longer before starting a family and then usually have fewer children. This also endangers development of national economies in the long-term. Social Dialogue The European Commission s proposals for tackling youth unemployment include - in addition to the core elements of early actions and intervention - further education and training and the inclusion of young people in the labour market, and, above all, the development of partnerships between all the stakeholders involved. This means not only private and public institutions but also youth associations and cooperation with the social partners, for example, the unions. These partnerships are envisaged at all vertical levels and at all key stages of the measures, i.e. the design, implementation and evaluation stages. Despite these suggestions or perhaps because there are no obligations with respect to the involvement of social partners, the involvement of trade unions in the activities of the Youth Guarantee takes a wide variety of forms. Of the 25 countries that participated in the survey, just 16 of the national trade unions were actively involved in the design and implementation of the YG measures. According to many of the trade union representatives who took part in the survey, neither the national governments nor the employers attribute as much importance to the YG as they do. Importance of the YG (trade unions perception) The biggest differences are to be found in the questions about precarious working conditions amongst young people. While for unions this problem is highly relevant, in their view national governments do not, generally speaking, see the precarious work situations of young people as being of particular importance. The multitude of measures introduced by individual countries and the rise in precarious working conditions lead to the conclusion that increases in precarious working conditions are a tolerated by EU countries who instead focus more on the short-term fight against unemployment. The implementation of measures has worked especially well in those countries which have consistently sought to engage all the relevant stakeholders, including youth associations and trade unions, in dialogue. Where social partners and trade unions were institutionally and regularly involved in designing and implementing the Youth Guarantee, this frequently translated in relatively lower youth unemployment and NEET figures. Generally speaking, this cannot be explained solely by the inclusion of social partners. The macro- and micro-economic conditions of the country, the severity of austerity measures, the nature and extent of the countermeasures as well as their funding lead to conclusions about the level of youth unemployment. However, the dialogue with trade unions and the know-how that they can contribute, often seems to have a positive impact 4

5 on the result of the Youth Guarantee. Unfortunately this was implemented in just a few countries. Surprisingly, the majority of trade unions report that their involvement in the Youth Guarantee was weaker compared to their usual involvement in comparable active labour market policies affecting them. It is up to the unions to continue to take an active part in the Youth Guarantee dialogue in their respective countries, to demand their right to have a voice, to contribute expertise and to highlight issues. At European level, trade unions must unite with young people and social partners for fair working conditions, equal opportunities and the sustainable implementation of the Youth Guarantee. 5