Commission seeks to cut youth unemployment

National governments will be asked to introduce a “youth guarantee”.

The European Commission will next week set out suggestions for reducing youth unemployment as part of its flagship policy for economic revival, Europe 2020.

The Commission will ask national governments to introduce a “youth guarantee” to ensure all young people are in work, training or education within six months of leaving school. Also included in a wide-ranging policy paper, to be published on Wednesday (15 September), will be measures to help young people work, study and volunteer in other EU countries.

“Our target is to fight unemployment through education and skills,” said Androulla Vassiliou, the European commissioner responsible for education and youth policy, in an interview with European Voice. “Given the social problems we are now facing, we are more conscious of the need for action on social Europe.”

In a speech to the European Parliament this week, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso vowed that the EU would not “sit on the sidelines” on employment policy. “I want a Union that is social and inclusive…centred on skills and jobs and lifelong learning,” he told MEPs.

Young people have been hardest-hit by the recession. Joblessness among the under-25s was 20% in July, double the average for the entire workforce.

In June, in endorsing the Europe 2020 policy, national government leaders signed up to targets to ensure that at least 40% of 30- to 34-year- olds are university graduates by 2020, compared to fewer than one in three today. They also promised to reduce the number leaving school without any qualifications to 10%, from the current 15%.

‘Youth guarantee’

Next week’s “youth on the move” strategy is the Commission’s first attempt at making these 2020 targets a reality.

Fact File

UNIVERSITY RANKINGS

The European Commission wants to see a “fairer” global league table for universities, Vassiliou told European Voice.
The commissioner for education criticised existing league tables, such as that produced by Shanghai JiaTong university, for over-emphasising research and downplaying the “employability” of graduates. The Shanghai system is “one-sided because it is based on very limited criteria”, such as the number of Nobel Prize winners, she said, while other measures, such as teaching quality and the job prospects of students, are overlooked.
Vassiliou also thinks that current rankings unfairly penalise universities specialising in the humanities. “You cannot compare a university that has a technical direction to a university that is geared to the humanities,” she said.
The commissioner rejected the charge that the Commission wanted to change the system because European universities fare poorly in the rankings – only two European universities are featured in the world’s top 20 universities according to the Shanghai Jia Tong table. “It is not simply that we feel the existing rankings are unfair to Europe. It is something that will be more fair and just for everybody.”
The Commission will present the results of a feasibility study to create a new university ranking system covering 110 global universities next year.

The paper contains 28 separate ideas, from target-setting (the work guarantee), to more populist measures – a special “youth on the move” discount card for young people. Many of the plans aim to promote mobility among young people. The Commission wants to start a “mobility scoreboard” to assess barriers to studying abroad, as well as a European vacancy monitor to help job-seekers find openings across the Union.

The Commission and the European Investment Bank are also in talks about how the bank could provide loans to young people who want to study, volunteer or work abroad.

The EU has scant law-making powers in education and employment, and these moves could be interpreted as a march into national competences. Vassiliou denied that the Commission was seeking new powers, but said that member states needed assistance. Member states “may or may not adopt” the policies set out next week, she said. The Commission will be checking progress on reaching the education 2020 targets each year, but there will be no naming and shaming of laggards, she said.

A report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published on Tuesday (7 September) exposed differences in higher education among EU member states. Graduates continue to enjoy a substantial “earnings premium” from higher education, earning 153% the wages of people without a degree, according to the OECD’s annual “Education at a Glance” report.

But while the earnings premium had gone up in Germany and Hungary, the gap had narrowed in other EU countries, such as Sweden, Spain and the UK.