Introduction

The European Social Agenda defined in the Council of Nice declared: “social cohesion, the rejection of any form of exclusion or discrimination and gender equality are all essential values of the European social model”. Moreover, “employment is the best protection against social exclusion”, but “quality” in work, both in job characteristics and in the work and wider labour market context, is essential to strengthen the social model. Within the European Employment Strategy (EES), young unemployed people are one of the main target groups of employment policy, and education and training are the main instruments used to raise young people's employability.

Across Europe, various proactive schemes have been implemented in the past two decades. According to international conventions, they include job-broking activities with the aim of improving matching between vacancies and unemployed people, labour market training and job creation (subsided employment). However, training schemes, such as work and training contracts, apprenticeships and scholarships, are the most suitable measures for young people, as they activate the accumulation of human capital necessary to find gainful employment. This chapter studies how educational attainment and past participation in training affect labour market participation of young long-term unemployed people (aged 18-24) within the EU. Participation in the labour market for young people includes not only unemployment and employment but also investment in human capital through education and training.

The nature of youth unemployment

The youth activity rate is generally lower than that of adults in almost every country. Low labour force participation crucially depends on educational, vocational and training systems on the one hand, and on labour market structure and institutions on the other. Cross-country differences in the degree of efficiency of the educational systems explain a large part of the differences in the participation rate of young people. In almost every country, teenagers (aged 15-19) tend to have lower participation rates due to school attendance, whereas for young adults (aged 20-24), participation is generally dependent on the effectiveness of training systems in favouring a smooth transition from school to work. Germany is the exception, where young adults have slightly higher unemployment rates than teenagers.

An efficient education system also reduces the share of young adults flowing into the unofficial economy and/or into social exclusion or marginalisation (see Chapter Eight of this book).