New data show more than 14 million young people benefitted from Youth Guarantee

Latest data on the Youth Guarantee show that youth unemployment and rate of NEETs have reached record lows since the Youth Guarantee started, but also indicate more work is still needed, says the European Commission. 

New EU country-specific unemployment figures, published by the Commission today, show that both the EU youth (15-24) unemployment rate (14.6%) and the rate of young people (15-25) neither in employment nor in education or training (NEETs) (10.2%) have reached a record low level since the Youth Guarantee took off five years ago.

Latest data on the implementation of the Youth Guarantee and the Youth Employment Initiative, the main EU financial resource to support the implementation of Youth Guarantee schemes in Member States show good progress but also that more work is needed. Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Marianne Thyssen said: “We launched the Youth Guarantee and we use our European funds to fight one of the most critical social issues of our time: youth unemployment. While we still want to see more young people find their way on the labour market, it is encouraging to see that the Youth Guarantee has made a real difference. More than 14 million young people have benefitted from it since 2014.” 

Youth unemployment has decreased in all Member States, including those worst affected like Greece, Italy and Spain. Rates of young people neither in employment education nor training (NEETs) have also decreased in most Member States. Since 2014, the Youth Guarantee has provided opportunities to more than 3.5 million young people each year. By end-2017, 2.4 million young people in the regions worst hit by youth unemployment had benefitted from direct support by the Youth Employment Initiative.

While the youth unemployment rate in the EU is still double the overall unemployment rate, youth unemployment is decreasing faster than overall unemployment.