Youth Guarantee

European Youth Plan background briefing

Europes youth is paying a high price in the current difficult economic social context. More
than one in five young European is unemployed in Europe1 and more than a third among
them are long-term unemployed (more than 12 months). Dedicated to reverse this trend, the
Party of European Socialists (PES) proposes a European Youth Plan that builds on four
pillars: Jobs, education, culture, and children.The main aim of the jobs pillar of this European
Youth Plan is to make the Youth Guarantee a permanent mechanism available to help all
young people join the labour market.

Four years ago, we, Socialists and Democrats, have successfully campaigned for a European
Youth Guarantee with the aim to ensure that within four months upon finishing school or
becoming unemployed, every young person (under the age of 25) receives either: a job; an
offer for quality apprenticeship; a traineeship or a place in continued education2. With this idea,
we put youth at the centre of the political agenda, the idea gained momentum, it gained the
support of the youth civil society, and it was finally endorsed by all EU Member States in 20133.
The Youth Guarantee was then backed with 6.4 billion Euros in the Youth Employment
Initiative (YEI) fund.

While this funding is now fully used allowing for what the European Commissions called
promising first steps after the publication of the Joint Employment Report 2015 and that of
country specific reports in March 20154, we must not allow this instrument to be phased out.
We therefore want:
To promote high quality standards for the schemes in place
To broaden the scope of its beneficiaries
To integrate the Youth Guarantee as a permanent feature of the European Social
Model
To extend the Youth guarantees funding with 20 billion Euro until 2020

1. We support a quality, broad and consistent implementation of the youth

guarantee:

1
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics
2
Council Recommendation of 22 April 2013 on Establishing a Youth Guarantee (2013/c 120/0)
3
Council Recommendation of 22 April 2013 on Establishing a Youth Guarantee (2013/c 120/0)
4
See http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1161&langId=en
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www.pes.eu
Party of European Socialists
www.facebook.com/PES.PSE 10-12 Rue Guimard
B-1040 Brussels
www.twitter.com/PES_PSE
Belgium
All Member States have now set-up their national Youth Guarantee schemes5. These cover
various types of measures ranging from early intervention mechanisms, reinforced public
employment services, to school to work transition schemes and establishing youth
employment agencies. In high growth periods the youth guarantee can shift resources towards
training (supply-side intervention), and in depression it can open room for action on the
demand side (e.g. wage subsidy). Although the Youth Guarantee is still at different steps of
implementation from one Member State to the other, we want to build on this positive start to
further improve the youth guarantee schemes in all Member States, may it be in terms of
quality or outreach.

1.1 Quality offers

To fight precarious work, short term contract and unpaid or low-paid internships and
traineeships, a greater emphasis is needed on quality in the implementation of the Youth
Guarantee, together with better definitions and practical ways to control it. This is crucial to
secure a safe transition from education to work. We want to make sure the Youth guarantee
is an effective springboard for young people to integrate quality jobs.
We want to ensure the good quality and the sustainability of the offers under Youth
Guarantee schemes, including those for traineeships and apprenticeships6. This
implies promoting standards in particular in terms of social protection, decent
remuneration, stability, rights, health and safety, type of contract, the related level and
type of qualification required and the availability of additional job-related training.
The Youth Guarantee must require clear and specific guidelines for work standards
and remuneration, in particular to ensure the principle of equal pay and equal treatment
irrespective of the workers age.
We refuse strong conditionality that forces young people to accept precarious work or
lose social benefits.
We want adequate institutional frameworks (Public Employment Services ) with
adequate means to support young peoples transition from school to work.
Youth guarantee schemes should foster new, innovative forms of quality employment
in a rapidly changing labour market, in particular in the care, digital and green sectors.

1.2 A maximum outreach

Young people are a very heterogeneous group with different characteristics and often multiple
needs. In our view, the Youth Guarantee can only be a success if it efficiently reaches out to
them. It is essential to re-focus the implementation on the concept of a guarantee, which
means making the schemes accessible and functional for all young people who need it. We
therefore want to improve the Youth Guarantee on the following aspects:
Public employment services staff training to deal with young people and to provide
personalized services and guidance.
Encouraging cooperation with the education system, social services and civil society
organisations, in particular youth organisations, in order to reach out to those who are
not registered with public employment services and thus potentially out of the reach
of the youth guarantee.
We want to ensure a maximum outreach of the Youth Guarantee, and call for the
extension of the scope of beneficiaries, by raising the age limit to 30.

5
European Commission, The Youth Guarantee Country by country,
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1161&langId=en
6 The Council recommendation on a Quality Framework for Traineeships of 10 March 2014 constitute an

interesting first step in this respect.

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 Ensuring that a gender dimension is included in terms of reaching out to women and
men equally but also in terms of helping women access the labour market to achieve
the Europe2020 target of 75% of women and men aged 20 to 64 being in employment7.
Particular attention should be paid to young people at greater risk of exclusion such as
long term unemployed, young migrants and refugees, and a targeted approach, with
specific measures, should be adopted to better address specific beneficiaries.

2. We renew our commitment in favour of youth employment with a reinforced

Youth Guarantee

Turning the Youth Guarantee into a permanent mechanism will guarantee that Europes youth
is not left behind amidst the challenging conditions of labour markets. A one off, partial
commitment over a few years is not sufficient to sustainably address youth unemployment. It
is now time to confirm the Youth Guarantee as a success story, which we can be proud of in
2019.

2.1. The Youth Guarantee: a permanent support for youth

We want to integrate the Youth Guarantee as a permanent feature of EU employment policies

and a central component of the European Social Model. It is a progressive structural reform
that facilitates young people school-to-work transitions, and one of the most innovative labour
market policies of recent years8. We want it to help Member States improve their approach to
Young peoples integration to the labour market.
We want a regular assessment of the progress made in implementation and delivery
of the youth guarantee in Member States to ensure the best use and full mobilisation
of YEI funds. We need a clear evaluation mechanism on the efficiency of funding.
We want a qualitative implementation of the Youth Guarantee. This implies a proper
evaluation of all schemes put in put in place, together with young people to ensure
they meet the criteria set in the 2013 Council Recommendation.
We want the existing schemes that do not meet these criteria yet to be reformed and
improved in order to ensure they effectively support young people entering the labour
market.
Moreover, a comprehensive approach with more progressive reforms, including
support to the education system, should complement the implementation of the Youth
Guarantee.
Considering the Youth Guarantee is a structural reform, its national co-funding should
be exempted from deficit calculation and its proper implementation be strongly
monitored in the European Semester.

2.2 Sustainable and sufficient funding until 2020

Taking subsidiarity into account, the EUs main tool against employment is the financial
support it can provide to Member States. For the youth guarantee to become a permanent
feature of EU employment policies, it is thus essential to ensure the sustainability and
sufficiency of EU funding beyond 2016
The initial funding of the Youth Guarantee, with 6. 4 billion EUR allocated for 2014 and 2015
in the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI), is not sufficient and remains limited to EU regions

7Europe 2020, A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, COM(2010) 2020 final
8
The Youth Guarantee programme in Europe: Features, implementation and challenges by Vernica Escudero
and Elva Lpez Mourelo, Working Paper No 4. 2015 August; http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---
dgreports/---inst/documents/publication/wcms_393024.pdf

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with a youth unemployment rate above 25% in 20129 whereas the Youth Guarantee starts
showing positive results10. To prevent the financial support to simply dry up, a further
strengthening of the Youth Employment initiative is essential, in particular in the context of the
EUs Multiannual Financial Framework review.
We demand 20 billion Euro until 2020 for the Youth Employment Initiative, as called for
by French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi11. This
would constitute an increase by 33 %of the financial support available each year,
allowing not only for the continuation, but also the improvement and expansion of the
schemes already in place.
This should also be complemented with a further mobilisation of the European Social
Fund and where possible, national funding sources, to support youth guarantee
schemes in Member States.
We want to ensure all countries can access the YEI funding, in particular those that
need it most. This would imply further easing the pre-financing and the co-financing
requirements for the YEI.
In order to ensure broader participation in Youth Guarantee programmes overall,
criteria for funding could be extended geographically to better address the issue of
sub-regional areas confronted high youth unemployment or to address specific groups
of young peoples needs.

For us, PES, the Youth Guarantee is a leverage for more social and economic innovation. It
has the potential to counter the skills mismatch and to provide individual, tailor made solutions
to young people at a moment when they experience an important change in their life. We want
it to be a stepping stone for young people entering the labour market and a stepping stone for
the EU towards a more progressive macroeconomic agenda.

If you have any questions or comments concerning youth guarantees in Europe, please do
not hesitate to contact Antoine Mertzeisen, PES adviser on social and employment policies
(antoine.mertzeisen@pes.eu; +32 2 548 90 96 ).

9 Regions with youth unemployment rates of more than 20% in 2012 in Member States where the youth
unemployment rate had increased by more than 30% in 2012 are also eligible for YEI funding, which made 20
eligible to YEI funding.
10 The financial programming foresees no funds on line Youth Employment Initiative (specific top-up allocation)

for the years 2016-2020. .However, MFF Regulation foresaw that Global MFF Margin for commitments
(margins left available below the MFF ceilings for commitment appropriations for the years 2014-2017) are to be
made available over and above the ceilings established in the MFF for the years 2016 to 2020 for policy
objectives related to growth and employment, in particular youth employment.
11
Joint declaration by French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of the 33rd
French-Italian Summit, 8 March 2016. Online: http://www.elysee.fr/declarations/article/declaration-conjointe-du-33eme-
sommet-franco-italien/