László Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, talked at the Italian Presidency Conference on Employment in Milan on the Youth Guarantee as an essential investment for the future.

According to commisssioner, unemployment among young people is still very high. At 21.6%, the EU youth unemployment rate is over twice the overall rate and varies strongly across Europe: it ranges from 7.6% in Germany to over 51.5% in Greece and 53.7% in Spain. Such divergences in youth unemployment rates threaten the economic stability of the monetary union, and undermine social cohesion and the political confidence of an entire generation.

László Andor promoted the Youth Guarantee as a key structural reform. Alongside supply-side measures such as tailor-made job-search guidance and training courses, Youth Guarantee schemes entail measures to boost demand for young people’s labour, such as well-targeted wage or recruitment subsidies and apprenticeship grants.

In commissioner’s opinion investing in the Youth Guarantee is crucial for preserving the EU’s future growth potential. More recently the G20 strongly supported it and invited countries to step up implementation.

The economic value of the Youth Guarantee is related both to building up the human capital stock and to improving the flow of this human capital into and within the labour market.

The commmisioner emphasized that it pays off to ensure that young people quickly find relevant jobs, where their productive potential can be realised. For this, we need not only education and training but also good labour market flows. We need active labour market policies as well as measures stimulating demand for labour, such as targeted hiring subsidies.

Full text of the speech can be found here