Youth Unemployment in Europe

Youth unemployment has been increasing in the European Union and it is rather a sensitive topic, bearing high economic cost due to the deteriorating effect of unemployment spells on human capital, high social benefits to be paid,  but also high social cost, as for example increasing crime (Bell and Blanchflower, 2010).Youth unemployment rate reached dramatically high rates in Southern Europe, i.e. Greece, Spain and Croatia having the highest youth unemployment rates, above 50%. That is, more than half of their youngsters cannot enter the labour market.  Germany seem to be doing much better, having the lowest unemployment rate in the EU, of 7,9%.

Figure 2. Youth Unemployment in 2013 in the European Union, by country

So the question that comes naturally is how to reduce youth unemployment? An inter-connected issue and very relevant to the topic is the high share of precarious employment offered to youngsters, i.e. unstable and insecure jobs with limited contracts, low-wages or on-call contracts, with unguaranteed number of working hours. So the second question that comes up is how to offer quality jobs to youngsters?

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via Europe’s Youth Unemployment | blog.coleurope.eu.