engleski

Youth unemployment challenges in eu new member and accession countries

The problem of youth unemployment is one of the most challenging problems of EU new member and accession countries. Many academic researches (O'Higgins, 2003 ; Caroelo, Pastore, 2002) addressed the importance of youth unemployment while EU administration provides guidelines for decreasing the youth unemployment and for easier transition from education to work place. Across all EU member and EU accession countries young people confront many labour market problems similar to those of adults but they are more sensitive to changes in economic conditions. Therefore youth unemployment rates tend to decrease more during the "booms" and to increase more in recessions than the adult rates. This tendency is significant for most European countries where the youth unemployment rates are two to three times higher than the adult rates. The aim of this paper is to analyze the size and trends, as well as causes and consequences of youth unemployment among EU accession countries in comparison with the new member states. The strong decline of employment over the transition period in EU new member and accession countries, together with the rigid labour market, have deteriorated the status of young people in the labour market comparing to the rest of the labour force. Youth unemployment rates in these countries are two to four times higher than adult rates. Very high youth to adult unemployment ratios signify strong disadvantage for young people in relation to adults in securing decent employment. The main factors explaining youth unemployment are the same as the ones explaining general unemployment. However, there are several factors that particularly influence the level of youth unemployment, such as demographic developments, lack of skills and knowledge required by labour market, missing links between education and the labour market, lack of working experience, role of family at providing income support, employment protection regulation, last in-first out principle etc. The sustained long-term unemployment and lack of employment opportunities for young people can lead them to social exclusion, poverty and low-productivity activities in informal economy. The difficulties that young people face when they enter the labour market can affect their behaviour in many ways. As a response to bad conditions on the labour market young people delay their entrance on it by remaining longer in the educational system, in order to enlarge their chances to find a job. Another response to high youth unemployment can be emigration, which is looked upon as a positive opportunity for young people (especially for those highly educated) to get rid of unemployment and poverty by finding jobs abroad. However, there is a negative effect of emigration and that is: the risk of losing the best young labour force as well as the risk of losing the investments in education in the domicile country. Moreover, the consequence of high youth unemployment rate is the employment of young people in low-quality and low-paid jobs in the informal economy. Since the problem of youth unemployment is of great importance to the whole society, a special attention should be directed to labour market policies designed to improve the employability of young people. The measures should be aimed at those young people who are threatened by long-term unemployment, in a way that helps them to acquire knowledge that is needed on the labour market, through various programs of training and prequalification. The efficiency of the application of measures of active employment policy which are focused on young persons significantly depends on the good targeting of young groups who are under the greatest risk of unemployment.

labour market; EU accession countries; youth unemployment; long term youth unemployment

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