1. PRESENTATION
Presentation
The Youth Guarantee: Policies and Practices
James Higgins

2. What is the European Youth Forum?
• The European Youth Forum (YFJ) is a European youth-platform, independently
established by youth organisations. It is made up of 98 National Youth Councils
and International Non-Governmental Youth Organisations, which are federations
of youth organisations in themselves
• It brings together tens of millions of young people from all over Europe, organised
in order to represent their common interests.
• Representation, internal democracy, independence, openness and inclusion are
among the main principles for the functioning of the European Youth Forum and
its Member Organisations.

3. The European Youth Forum is for
the empowerment of young
people, so that they can exercise
their rights and become active
citizens. To do this we work to
ensure young people have a say in
the policies that affect them.

4. Youth Unemployment: The Hard Facts
• Youth unemployment has been consistently higher than unemployment among
the adult population for many years
• Young people are more vulnerable on the labour market, they are over-
represented in temporary and part-time jobs and as a result are more likely to face
unemployment during recessions
• As a result, when the financial crisis unravelled in mid-2008 young people were
impacted the most. The youth unemployment rate climbed to over 21% in 2010
and has remained there ever since (currently 23.4%)
• According to the European Commission, young people and children are the
demographic most likely to face poverty and are therefore more affected by cuts
to services and jobs during economic recession

5. The Economic Cost
• In economic terms, according to EUROFOUND, the cost of youth unemployment
in terms of social welfare costs and lost contribution to GDP amounts to 153
Billion Euro per year in 26 Member States – roughly 14.000 Euros per young
person
• Long periods of unemployment while young have been shown to have potential
“scarring” effects which have a harmful impact in later life, particularly for young
people not in employment, education or training (NEETs).
• According to the OECD, a six month spell of unemployment at the age of 22
would result in an 8% lower wage at 23, and even at ages 30 and 31 wages would
be 2-3% lower than they would have been otherwise. The lower the level of initial
qualification, the longer these scarring effects are likely to impact the individual.

6. The Youth Guarantee
• The Youth Forum has been lobbying for a European youth guarantee, the policy of
offering a young person a job, training, or re-training, as a right, within 4 months
of being made unemployed since 2010
• The concept of guaranteeing a young person a job, training or retraining
originated in the Scandinavian countries in the 1980s but has recently gained
interest in other European countries and regions
• Some form of the Youth Guarantee is in place in Denmark, Sweden, Norway
Austria and Finland. There are also youth guarantees in place in municipalities and
regions in different parts of Europe, such as Tuscany in Italy and Ballymun in
Dublin, Ireland.
• In order to clearly explain the strengths and weaknesses of the youth guarantee
this presentation will focus on the countries with two of the longest established
schemes: Sweden and Finland

7. The Swedish Job Guarantee (En jobbgaranti for ungdommar)
• Sweden introduced the first youth guarantee in 1984 (followed by Norway
and Denmark in 1993)
• Some difficulties were encountered with the scheme in the 1990s due to the
recession in the region, and the scheme has been revised over the past 10
years, with a re-vamped version launched in 2007
• The target group for the Job Guarantee is unemployed people aged 16-24
who are registered for over three months
• The aim of the scheme is to offer employment services quickly to prevent
long-term unemployment

8. The Swedish Job Guarantee: Implementation
The job search support offered by the PES is divided into three phases:
1.The young person registers at the PES
2.In depth assessment of personal needs carried out
3.After 3 months job search activities are intensified and combined with active
labour market measures such as work experience placements, traineeships,
support in accessing education or training, or getting start-fund funding for a
business

9. Finnish Youth Guarantee (Nuorten Yhtieskuntatakuu)
• The target group for the Finnish youth guarantee was young people under 25
but this was extended to include young graduates up to the age of 30 in 2013
• The aim of the youth guarantee is to reduce the time of NEET status by
improving their chances of finding a job or educational opportunity
• Under the Finnish system the public employment services is obliged to
develop a personal development plan for the jobseeker, to carry out a needs
assessment of what support is needed and to offer a job, study place or
another ‘activation measure’.
• Provisions are made for training, coaching, counselling, subsidised work and
start-ups for small businesses in the scheme

10. Popularity of Youth Guarantee
• The youth guarantee has proved popular with young people in both Sweden
and Finland since its inception
• In Sweden the young people participating in the scheme increased from
10,000 in 2008 to 53,000 in 2010. There were successful outcomes for 46%
of young people
• In Finland 83.5% of young jobseekers received a successful intervention
within 3 months of registering as unemployed in 2011
• In Finland the PES accelerated it’s services to young people resulting in a
drop in youth employment
• During the economic crisis both countries struggled to meet demand. In
Finland in 2009 there was 1 youth adviser per 700 clients. In 2010 Finland
increased its budget to its PES to meet the demand from young people

11. Challenges of Youth Guarantee
Although the youth guarantee has proved successful in Sweden and Finland, it
has exposed a number of challenges and areas that need further attention:
•Youth guarantees have had limited impact on entrenched ‘hard-to-reach’
unemployed young people. Improved integration between youth services, social
services and health services is required for this group
•The youth guarantee depends on the capacity of public employment services
and the integration of public policies in place (e.g. between employers and
education providers
•Temptation to provide a ‘quick-fix’ solution of ‘any job will do’ rather than
addressing medium to long term issues; such as skills mismatch
•There needs to be an intervention at an early stage, allowing a young person to
remain inactive for more than 3 months harms their employability

12. Summary
• The reinvestment of €60 million in the Finnish youth guarantee this year,
combined with the popularity of the scheme among young people is a
testament to its potential to address youth employment issues
• However, the youth guarantee is not a quick-fix solution and for the most
disadvantaged young people efforts must first be taken on a community
basis to reintegrate them in society
• In order to implement the scheme effectively there must be a real investment
in public employment services in order to make them youth-friendly as well
as capable of handling the increased demand