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YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT

Spain and Germany fight youth unemployment

Germany has agreed to provide vocational training and jobs for young Spaniards starved of opportunities in their crisis-hit home country.

Published: 22 May 2013 09:02 CEST
Spain and Germany fight youth unemployment
Each year nearly 5,000 young Spaniards will be able to benefit from vocational opportunities or even from stable and skilled jobs in Germany," said Spain's Employment Minister Fatima Banez. Photo: DPA

"Each year nearly 5,000 young Spaniards will be able to benefit from vocational opportunities or even from stable and skilled jobs in Germany," Spain's Employment Minister Fatima Banez said after signing the deal with her German counterpart Ursula von der Leyen late Tuesday.

The deal offers "the determined and sincere support of all the public administrations in Germany to young people who want to train and have skilled work in the coming years." 

A double recession sparked by the collapse of a building boom has thrown millions of people out of work in Spain. It has driven the unemployment rate among those aged 16-24 to more than 57 percent and 27 percent overall. 

Von der Leyen later said Germany had a shortage of skilled workers.

"In Germany we have a shortage of qualified personnel. We have one million open jobs, desperately looking for people who can fill them," she told a conference on youth employment in Madrid.

Banez called it "a big step forward in supporting young people in Europe."

Von der Leyen called for a broader Europe-wide scheme of on-the-job training in companies, along the lines of Germany's vocational system.

"I think we will need something like a pact in Europe, something like a public-private partnership… to offer a broad range of vocational training jobs," she said.

She proposed a kind of "Erasmus [EU exchange programme] for all – vocational training all over Europe." 

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ITALY

EU heavyweights tackle youth jobless crisis

Spain, Italy, France and Germany sent their economy and labour ministers to Rome on Friday to look at ways to bring down the high levels of youth unemployment blighting the lives of millions across Europe.

Published: 14 June 2013 14:02 CEST
EU heavyweights tackle youth jobless crisis
Some 53.3% of Spain's young people are unemployed as a result of the economic crisis, according to Eurostat. Photo: Dominique Faget/AFP

The emergency talks in the Italian capital come at a time when Spain's youth unemployment is over 50 percent.

French Labour Minister Michel Sapin said in an interview with Italy's Il Sole 24 daily on Friday that "in every country, even those where the unemployment rate is lower such as Germany, the percentage of young people without work is double the national average."

Sapin called on the four countries meeting in Rome to "react quickly, using the resources already available," such as the €6 billion ($7.99 billion) earmarked for the battle against youth unemployment in the 2014-2020 European Union budget.

Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, at 46 one of the youngest leaders in the EU, has said he hopes Friday's talks will help "define a European employment policy, especially regarding young people".

According to the latest EU statistics from Eurostat, of the 26.5 million people who were unemployed in the EU in April, 5.6 million of them were under 25 years old, which was 100,000 more than a year earlier.

The highest youth jobless rates were scored by Greece (62.5 percent), Spain (53.2 percent), Portugal (42.5 percent) and Italy (40.5 percent), reflecting how young people are paying the price for tough reforms imposed to restructure economies and reduce debt.

While 26.5 percent of young people were unemployed in France, Germany and Austria had markedly lower rates, with 7.5 and 8.0 percent of young people out of work.

Friday's meeting is aimed at preparing the ground for the European Councils of June 27 and 28, at which youth unemployment will one of the key topics on the table, and a special meeting on the theme in Berlin on July 3.

The discussions will be followed by a meeting of European labour ministers in Madrid on June 19, according to a spokesman from the Spain's employment ministry, who said Spain "wants to promote credit for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and measures to help employ young people.

"The idea of focusing on SMEs as a key to creating work for the young was touted at the end of May as part of a French-German drive to open doors for young people.  

German governmental sources said the ministers had adopted a "shared task on a European level regarding policies devoted to the labour market," looking in particular at "margins for improvement on transparency, the exchange of information on best practices, job centres."

The spokesman for the European Commissioner for Employment Laszlo Andor called for the four countries to "coordinate implementation of the Youth Guarantee scheme as soon as possible."

Funded by the European Union, the scheme stipulates that within four months of leaving education or losing work, under-25s would be assured a job offer, an apprenticeship or a traineeship.

Italian Labour Minister Enrico Giovannini said Letta has called for a "shock intervention" to tackle the crisis, with possible measures including tax cuts, changes to contracts and investment in job seeker services.

At the moment, Italy invests just €500 million euros ($666 million) a year in such services compared to € 5 billion in France.

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