According to a report published by the European Court of Auditors (ECA)<\/b>, the European Union efforts to support the integration of young people into the labour market<\/b> are still not focused on results. <\/p>\n
Employment<\/a><\/b> is primarily the responsibility of the Member States<\/b>, whose efforts are supported or complemented by the EU budget<\/b>. <\/p>\n
Although youth unemployment rates have fallen<\/b> significantly<\/b> over the last decade, EU-funded measures still do not focus on supporting the long-term integration of young people into the labour market<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Youth employment<\/b> has long been one of the most important challenges<\/b> facing EU Member States in the labour market. <\/p>\n
Although the unemployment rate of young people aged 15-29 has fallen from 20% in 2013 to less than 12%<\/b> in recent years, this age group is still twice as likely to be unemployed as the entire workforce. <\/p>\n
In 2025, the number of unemployed young people reached 4.7 million in the EU<\/b>, or 11.6% of the labour force aged between 15 and 29 years.<\/p>\n
“The EU must demonstrate that the support it provides for youth employment delivers sustainable results<\/b>“,<\/i> said Carlo Alberto Manfredi Selvaggi, member of the SCC<\/b> and responsible for scrutiny. <\/p>\n
“To see whether public spending on youth<\/b> is working, there is a need to set clearer targets and to better document long-term results.”<\/p>\n
Although the Member States are primarily responsible for youth employment policies<\/b>, the EU has a coordinating and supporting role. <\/p>\n
It provides strategic guidance<\/b>, in particular through the annual cycle of economic, budgetary and social policy coordination<\/b> in the context of the European Semester and the national reform programmes<\/b>, which have now been replaced by medium-term fiscal structural plans<\/b>. <\/b><\/p>\n
Since the adoption of the Youth Employment Package in 2012, significant EU resources have been mobilised to support young people’s access to work<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Since 2014 the EU has allocated around 25 billion euro to support young people’s access to work<\/b>. Since 2014<\/b> under Cohesion Policy specifically to support youth employment, including through the European Social Fund<\/b> (ESF), the Youth Employment Initiative<\/b> (YEI), the REACT-EU initiative and the European Social Fund+ (ESF+). <\/p>\n
Almost half of the funding, namely 47.5 %, goes to Italy and Spain<\/b>. <\/p>\n
The EU-funded measures combine incentives for employers<\/b> to recruit, training and guidance<\/b> actions aimed at young people, as well as actions to help them keep their jobs after they have been recruited.<\/p>\n
The main objective of the measures is sustainable integration into the labour market<\/b>. <\/p>\n
This means that it is not enough for a young person to find a job<\/b>, but that they must also continue to work after the financial support ends. <\/p>\n
In this context, maintaining a job after 12 or 18 months could be used as a reliable indicator of success<\/b>. <\/p>\n
For now, however, the longer-term outcome indicators refer to the employment status of beneficiaries<\/b> after six months. <\/p>\n
Therefore, the SCC concluded that the information<\/b> available to the Commission on the longer-term results of EU financial support for youth employment is fragmentary.<\/b><\/p>\n
It also found that the operational programmes<\/b> examined did not specify when a young person can be considered to have been successfully integrated into the labour market<\/b>, which creates confusion as to the objectives and increases the risk of financing measures<\/b> with EU funds without it being clear what exactly is being sought to be achieved and how. <\/p>\n
The SCA even warns that weaknesses in the design of recruitment incentives<\/b> pose a risk of inefficient and ineffective use of public money.<\/p>\n
The recruitment incentives<\/b> examined in the audit were not targeted<\/b> specifically at those most in need of work, resulting in an increased risk of financing<\/b> with public funds jobs that would have been created anyway. <\/p>\n
The ECA also found that the incentives were not linked to mandatory on-the-job training<\/b>, which is important because training not only improves the employability of young people in the long term, but also helps to meet labour market needs<\/b>, particularly in sectors facing skills shortages.<\/p>\n
In addition, the audit highlighted the particular situation of young people outside the labour market<\/b>, i.e. those who are neither working nor actively seeking work, referred to as “economically inactive” young people.<\/b><\/p>\n
They often face social, educational or health-related<\/b> barriers that cannot be addressed through labour market policy alone. <\/p>\n
Although the current EU framework provides for targeted outreach and promotion measures<\/b>, the SCA notes that economically inactive young people remain the group that is most difficult to reach.<\/b><\/p>\n
It would be advisable for EU member states to more actively engage with young people<\/b> who are outside the labour market and launch targeted actions by region<\/b>.<\/p>\n
* Konstantinos S. Margaritis is a journalist<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
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