Youth Guarantee

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Youth Guarantee is the name of labor , youth- and social policy instrument of the European Union for the permanent reduction in the number of young NEETs in the Member States of the Union ( NEET is an acronym of the term " N ot in E ducation, e mployment or T raining - not in training, work or training "- and describes the group of adolescents and young adults who do not attend school , do not have any work and are not in vocational training ).

Although only 14 to 17-year-olds are usually referred to as young people in the legal language in German-speaking countries , according to the definition of the United Nations (and thus also the ILO ), 15 to 24-year-olds, and for some years even 15 to 29 Year olds as adolescents .

history

Above all, as a result of the global financial crisis from 2007 and the euro crisis from 2010, the rate of young unemployed in the member states of the European Union rose continuously until 2013 . In 2013 it was 24.4 percent in the entire EU (excluding the UK). In Greece in 2013, 58.3 percent of young people between the ages of 16 and 24 were unemployed.

In order to prevent young people from remaining unemployed for long periods of time by intervening as early as possible, the European Council recommended on June 17, 2011 that the member states of the EU ensure that all young people under 25 years of age within a period of four Months after they become unemployed or leave school, a high-quality job or further training measure or a high-quality apprenticeship or internship is offered. The starting point for issuing the Youth Guarantee to a young person should be registration with an employment service; and for the “NEETs” not registered with any employment service, Member States should set an appropriate starting point to deliver the Youth Guarantee within the same four month timeframe.

The European Commission presented a proposal for a youth guarantee in December 2012 found. The majority of the European Parliament supported this proposal on January 16, 2013. It was adopted by the EU Council of Ministers on April 22, 2013 and approved by the European Council in June 2013. At their meeting on September 10 and 11, 2014 in Melbourne, the labor ministers of the G20 round also committed themselves to concrete measures to get young people into training, further education and employment, following the example of the EU Youth Guarantee.

In 2018 the European Commission concluded : “The Youth Guarantee has become a reality across the Union. It has helped improve the lives of millions of young Europeans. Since 2014, more than 5 million young people have registered in Youth Guarantee programs annually. Since then, over 3.5 million of them have accepted a job, further education, internship or apprenticeship offer every year. More than 2.4 million young people in the EU received direct support through the Youth Employment Initiative. ”By 2019, the youth unemployment rate in the EU had been reduced from 24.4 to 14.9 percent.

On July 1, 2020, the German Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs rated the Youth Guarantee as a “European success” because it was able to help 24 million young people in Europe. However, the youth unemployment rate is still unacceptably high in many EU countries. The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the challenge of offering young people in Europe career prospects. The youth guarantee should be renewed and adapted to the changed circumstances.

Nicolas Schmit , Social Democratic Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion in the EU Commission, sees a major problem in the attempt to provide all young people in the EU with an apprenticeship or job as soon as possible, in the inadequate qualification of many clients, which affects their employability . In particular, young people entering the job market today should have a minimum of digital or computer skills. Without drastic measures such as tripling the funds for the youth guarantee from 2020 and accompanying educational, structural and labor market policy measures by the EU member states, Schmit said, a “lost generation” will emerge and the EU will “fall apart”.

The “Research Institute for Innovative Work Design and Prevention (fiap)” takes the view that at the end of the COVID-19 crisis, the main task was to reduce general unemployment, and especially youth unemployment, to the lowest possible level. At the same time, however, the COVID-19 crisis offers the "unique opportunity to shape the economic recovery process as a 'green recovery'" by including the goals of the Green New Deal .

content

Through the Youth Guarantee, all EU Member States pledge to ensure that all young people under the age of 25 receive a high quality offer for within four months of becoming unemployed or completing their education

  • an occupation
  • a further training measure,
  • an apprenticeship, a training position or
  • an internship

receive.

Measures (providers) and funding

On the basis of the National Implementation Plan for the implementation of the EU Youth Guarantee in Germany , it becomes clear that it is difficult to define exactly which concrete measures serve to implement the Youth Guarantee in practice and how much money has been spent on implementing the Youth Guarantee since 2013.

As the initiator of the Youth Guarantee, the European Union finances half of the Youth Guarantee through the European Social Fund (ESF) and the other half through its own budget line "Youth Employment", which has been brought forward for the period 2014-2015, under heading Ib "Economic, social and territorial cohesion" in the multiannual financial framework. Since 2014 there has been an item in the ESF's budget for “Youth Employment Initiative - YEI”. For the period 2014 to 2020, the EU initially earmarked 6.4 billion euros for the most severely affected member states. In 2017 the amount was increased to 8.8 billion.

When the costs of the Youth Guarantee are accounted for, funds provided by the member states of the EU are also included in the calculation. For example, Germany's National Implementation Plan refers to “legal goals [existing in Germany] for years to provide training or young people looking for work without delay” (p. 18), as well as instruments serving these goals. It is unclear whether the further financing of such structures should be taken into account in the category “Financing of the Youth Guarantee” (in other EU countries such instruments had / must still be implemented and financed for the first time; that existing national financing is not due to the receipt of ESF funds reduced, was taken for granted when the Youth Guarantee was introduced).

The new measures to implement the Youth Guarantee in Germany that will continue to exist from 2014 and are planned from 2014 will be financed from various budgets according to the implementation plan from 2014. In addition to contribution means the unemployment insurance also are control means of federal , countries and municipalities and ESF -means the federal and state governments used. The German economy contributes financially in the form of the costs it bears for dual vocational training . In Germany in 2013 the net training costs of the companies (i.e. their training costs after deducting the training income) amounted to approx. 5.6 billion euros per year. (P. 41 f.)

Comments and criticism

European Court of Auditors

In April 2017, the European Court of Auditors complained that only 62 percent of the young people registered under the “Youth Guarantee” program had found further training, an internship or an apprenticeship at the end of 2015. There was a lack of “strategies with clear milestones and objectives”. In addition, there was a risk that EU funds simply replaced national funds without adding any added value.

MEPs

Sven Schulze , Member of the European Parliament ( EPP ), criticized in 2020 that member states with extremely high youth unemployment did not tackle sustainable reforms of their labor markets. He is concerned that many member states have accepted the money from Brussels, but have scaled back their national funding programs with the same objectives. He has been observing in European social policy for a long time "that with our funding offers we create a mismatch between expectations in the population and the ability of the EU to meet these expectations".

Parties in the EU member states

In its program for the 2013 Bundestag election , the FDP rated the youth guarantee as “ wrong in terms of regulatory policy ”. Instead, the Liberals advocated the introduction of the dual training system in the crisis countries. State-funded employment programs such as the youth guarantee proposed by the European Commission are not financially feasible in the long run, only have a flash in the pan, and their spending further exacerbated the state financial crisis.

At its 26th party congress in 2014, the CDU also saw a meaningful contribution by the party as part of the youth guarantee in “supporting other European countries in introducing successful dual training in schools and companies, because they open up a good professional future for young people can. "Because" [z] central in the fight against youth unemployment are continued economic growth, a flexible labor market and a good training system. "

In its capacity as the opposition party in the federal government, the SPD parliamentary group welcomed it on June 4, 2013, that especially young people in countries with extremely high unemployment should be helped by the EU and not so badly affected member states. She criticized, however, that the then black-red federal government saw "no reason to initiate additional measures to fulfill the youth guarantee in Germany". Despite the relatively low youth unemployment rate across Europe, there are 260,000 young people in Germany who “ hang in the transition area between school and training , although most of them have sufficient qualifications through their school leaving certificate to immediately start training”.

Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen welcomed the idea of ​​a youth guarantee in 2013. However, they viewed the project with skepticism: “It remains to be seen whether this well-sounding 'youth guarantee' will actually be more than just a promise for the young people in Europe affected by the crisis. For this purpose, the committed funds must actually be made available and implemented quickly and result-oriented in concrete and effective measures and projects. "

The magazine “Luxemburg” of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (the party foundation of the Left ) criticizes that the funds of the “Employment Initiative for Young People” are not distributed proportionally to the number of unemployed young people in the countries participating in the program but from a political point of view. The fact that Spain, Italy and France receive the most money is not because they are where young people are most in need. In Great Britain, which only left the EU in 2019, there were e.g. B. 2015 more NEETs than in Spain. In 2015, a NEET in Spain received 1038 euros in funding, and a NEET in Bulgaria only 294 euros. It is no coincidence that the term “NEET” is at the center of the youth guarantee, since the youth guarantee is shaped by the same neoliberal spirit as the ideas that led to the popularization of the term “NEET”. The reasons for the unwillingness of companies to hire young adults were, among other things, "excessive wages and› ancillary wage costs ‹". The EU's youth guarantee is "an unsuitable attempt to treat the problem of youth unemployment in isolation from the economic conditions that make it up". In terms of quantity, the program is inadequate because the financial resources available are far too small in relation to the number of people affected. However, it is also unsuitable in terms of quality because it misunderstands the causes of high youth unemployment. It must be "stated that a more or less high level of unemployment is a functional condition of the capitalist mode of production".

Economic researcher

In August 2013, the Ifo Institute for Economic Research examined the effectiveness of various methods for reducing youth unemployment in the EU. Even then, according to the Ifo, it was foreseeable that the long-term effect of measures to combat youth unemployment would be less, the shorter the intended effect is planned. An offer for an unemployed young person is better than nothing, but a “glut of interns” in the companies prevents the desired “sticky effect”, i. H. the long-term loyalty of a young person to a company that is actually to be striven for.

The Ifo doubts that the EU can help all young unemployed people in the EU. That is not their job either. It is the member states who have to develop concepts to combat unemployment in their own country. You are obliged not only to think of young people.

Unions

In its statement of April 29, 2013, the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) welcomed the efforts of the European Union to take active action against the high youth unemployment rate in the EU. However, he decidedly refused to include internships as an instrument of the youth guarantee. In addition, the Youth Guarantee must provide young people with high-quality training positions and regularly paid and high-quality jobs, as well as be able to offer interested parties further and further qualifying educational opportunities and places at state universities.

In October 2016, Tom Vrijens, Chairman of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) summed up: “The ETUC has always supported the Youth Guarantee . […] But the results have been disappointing so far. ”The quality criteria of the offers of the previous three years left a lot to be desired, national employment agencies are not as active as it would be desirable, the social partners , civil society and the young people concerned should have a more active role play, and above all, the project is significantly underfunded. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated the funds actually required to keep the promise contained in the Youth Guarantee at 45.4 billion euros for 2014 alone.

In May 2020, Tea Jarc, Chair of Youth at the ETUC, was disappointed with the practice of the Youth Guarantee. The "Youth Employment" initiative is a good approach because it can finance internships and further training measures. However, the initiative remains a drop in the ocean: many young people who are neither employed nor in training are not reached; Measures that are often only intended for the short term are not suitable for long-term protection against precarity . The youth guarantee must be combined with good framework conditions for internships and training positions, and all support measures must ultimately lead to young people finding good work .

Two months later, Joscha Wagner, deputy chairman of the youth at the ETUC, drew a sobering conclusion: "The EU could not keep its promise, the 'guarantee' was not one." The recession as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic will reduce the youth unemployment rate at least 25 percent (EU average), but possibly also to 30 percent, and instruments such as a renewed youth guarantee could not prevent this if the quality of the offers for young people is not finally paid attention to in state aid. Errors like the "old" youth guarantee should not be repeated with the new one. According to Wagner, trade unions and youth organizations in Spain were not involved in the national implementation, the target group was barely reached, companies had misused EU funds to replace regular jobs with precarious short-term jobs; At the same time, young people were encouraged to go into self-employment - but regular or even high-quality jobs were hardly created.

Churches

The (Catholic) Bishops' Conference of the EU welcomes increased efforts to reduce youth unemployment in the EU. However, she believes that far-reaching reforms in the member states are necessary, which could only show success in the long term. The Bishops' Conference recalls the encyclical Caritas in veritate of June 29, 2009. Pope Benedict XIV stated there that [d] he long-term exclusion from work or prolonged dependence on public or private help [...] freedom and creativity the person as well as their family and social relationships ”undermine“ what causes severe suffering on a psychological and spiritual level ”. According to the Bishops' Conference, the spiritual well-being of young people is particularly important to the Catholic Church.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eurostat : Glossary: ​​Inactive young people who do not participate in education or further training (NEET) . January 16, 2019, accessed August 13, 2020
  2. ↑ Austrian Federal Chancellery: United Nations . Retrieved August 12, 2020
  3. ^ Austrian Chamber of Commerce: Youth unemployment rate . wko.at. 2020. Accessed August 12, 2020
  4. ↑ Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs: Youth Guarantee . April 11, 2018, accessed August 14, 2020
  5. ↑ Council of the European Union: Recommendation of the Council of 13 April 2013 on the introduction of a youth guarantee (2013 / C 120/01) . April 26, 2013, accessed August 12, 2020
  6. ↑ European Parliament: "Youth Guarantee": Parliament urges EU ministers to submit appropriate programs . January 16, 2013, accessed August 14, 2020
  7. ↑ European Commission: The EU Youth Guarantee - Questions and Answers . February 4, 2015, accessed August 13, 2020
  8. ↑ European Commission: Purpose of the Youth Guarantee . 2019, accessed August 12, 2020
  9. ↑ Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs: Strengthening the youth guarantee - for a Europe of opportunities . July 1, 2020, accessed August 13, 2020
  10. ↑ Beatriz Rios: Experts warn: the EU Youth Guarantee must adapt to changes in the world of work . euractiv.de. January 13, 2020, accessed August 14, 2020
  11. ↑ EU Social Commissioner on EU youth unemployment: "Then Europe will blow us apart" . Spiegel Online . July 1, 2020, accessed August 24, 2020
  12. ^ Research Institute for Innovative Work Design and Prevention (fiap): Reinforcing the European Youth Employment Policy through the European Green Deal . May 29, 2020 (English), p. 2. Retrieved August 20, 2020
  13. ↑ European Commission: Purpose of the Youth Guarantee . 2019, accessed August 13, 2020
  14. ↑ Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs: National implementation plan for the implementation of the EU Youth Guarantee in Germany . April 8, 2014, accessed August 15, 2020
  15. ↑ With the youth guarantee against youth unemployment? . Newsletter. Magazine of the Bishops' Conference of the EU and the Jesuit European Office . September 2014, accessed August 24, 2020
  16. ↑ European Commission: The Youth Guarantee. Financing . 2019, accessed August 15, 2020
  17. ↑ EU fight against unemployment Youth Guarantee remains an empty promise . Mirror online. April 4, 2017, accessed August 13, 2020
  18. ↑ Sven Schulze (EPP / CDU): EU youth guarantee turns out to be ineffective . CDU Saxony-Anhalt. 2020, accessed on August 13, 2020
  19. ^ FDP: Against EU centralism, for European federal state . euractiv.de. July 25, 2013, accessed August 19, 2020
  20. ↑ "Successful together in Europe". European policy decision of the 26th party congress of the CDU in Germany . kas.de ( Konrad Adenauer Foundation ). April 5, 2014. p. 84, accessed August 19, 2020
  21. ↑ SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag: Federal government refuses to implement the youth guarantee in Germany . June 4, 2013, accessed August 19, 2020
  22. ^ Answers from BÜNDNIS 90 / DIE GRÜNEN to the election test stones of the cooperation network for youth social work for the 2013 federal election . jugendozialarbeit.de (Federal Working Group of the locally regional organizations responsible for youth social work). 2013. p. 3, accessed on August 19, 2020
  23. ↑ Thomas Sablowski / Sandra Sieron: Guaranteed Prekarisierung - The »Youth Guarantee« of the EU . zeitschrift-luxemburg.de. May 2015, accessed August 19, 2020
  24. ↑ Ifo Institute for Economic Research: Dual Training, ›Youth Guarantee‹ or Additional Aid Fund: What can be done against youth unemployment in Europe? . Ifo Schnelldienst 16/2013 - Volume 66 - p. 21 (23). August 29, 2013, accessed August 13, 2020
  25. ↑ Ifo Institute for Economic Research: Dual Training, ›Youth Guarantee‹ or Additional Aid Fund: What can be done against youth unemployment in Europe? . Ifo Schnelldienst 16/2013 - Volume 66 - p. 14 f. (16 f.). August 29, 2013, accessed August 19, 2020
  26. ^ German trade union federation (DGB): Statement of the German trade union federation on the youth guarantee . April 29, 2013, accessed August 13, 2020
  27. ^ German Trade Union Confederation (DGB): Europe: Trade unions demand real guarantees for young people . October 31, 2016, accessed August 13, 2020
  28. ^ Chamber for workers and employees : Implementation of the youth guarantee . 2019, accessed August 15, 2020
  29. ↑ ETUC Youth President Tea Jarc: "The Youth Guarantee has disappointed" . jugend.dgb.de. May 27, 2020, accessed August 13, 2020
  30. ↑ Joscha Wagner: EGB-Jugend: Time for good work - now! An appeal . jugend.dgb.de. July 14, 2020, accessed August 24, 2020
  31. ↑ With the youth guarantee against youth unemployment? . Newsletter. Magazine of the Bishops' Conference of the EU and the Jesuit European Office . September 2014, accessed August 24, 2020
  32. ↑ The Holy See: Encyclical "Caritas in Veritate" by Pope Benedict XVI. Section 25 . June 29, 2009, accessed August 24, 2020