In the aftermath of the crisis, the EU member states committed to the implementation of the Youth Guarantee (YG) action plan at the European Council Recommendation of April 2013, seeking to “ensure that all young people under the age of 25 years receive a good-quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education”. The YG builds on relevant youth welfare policies established in the Nordic countries during the 1980s and the 1990s, aiming to support youth labour markets. Below, we focus on the EU South and we try to offer fresh but also critical insights with regard to YG’s design and implementation in the regions of Italy and Spain (apart from Ceuta and Melilla located in the mainland of North Africa). Italy and Spain have suffered bigger losses in terms of youth employment and show a high spatial heterogeneity between their southern and northern regions in terms of inequality. Moreover, the high contribution of both countries to the total YG program in term of registrations puts them in the spotlight, as these countries, together with France, account for 47% of the total YG program enrolments. In addition, although we’d like to focus also in the Greek regions, this is not possible, as the YG has a nationally-centred character in the country that excludes any kind of bottom-down initiatives.
Studying the YG enrolments …
In regions that have high NEET rates, there is a high concentration of YG registrations, as well. This signifies a great reception of youth due to the limited job vacancies in these regions. In Italy, YG enrolees tend to concentrate in southern regions that record high NEET rates such as Sardinia, Sicily, Puglia and Basilicata, with the exception of Calabria and Campania, where there is an under-concentration of YG registrations or there are no deviations from the national trend. Calabria and Campania are amongst the least efficient Italian regions in terms of local employment offices’ capacity to organize the procedures required by the Initiative, such as individuals’ profiling. On the contrary, Tuscany, and Friuli Venezia Giulia, which have significantly lower NEET rates compared to the South, they present a bigger share of YG enrolments. These regions are amongst the Italian areas with the highest YG operational capacity, revealing the significance of the local key actors in the implementation of the Initiative.
Furthermore, YG may underperform region-wise. Lombardy (having a favourable position in the international division of labour) records the lowest share of YG registrations and at the same time has small NEETs rate. There is a similar motif in Spain, regarding the combination of YG registrations and NEETs rates. Andalusia and Extremadura in the Southwest, with low employment perspectives, present a big portion of YG registrations, while the same pattern is observed in the Canary Islands as well. In Galicia there is a moderate concentration of YG registrations, while the lowest number of YG registrations is observed in Catalonia and in the Valencian Community.Catalonia, with a prosperous economy that benefits greatly from industrial activity in the automotive, food and construction sectors, in addition to tourism, is not dependent on Active Labour Market Policies. Thus, this differentiation creates expectations for regions that do not have enough job vacancies.
Discussing about YG …
The socio-educational profile of young people registered in the YG is situated between two edges: On one hand, there are young individuals with low educational level who may also be facing poverty and are eventually caught in a vicious circle of precarious jobs. On the other hand, there are the young overqualified people that enrol in the Initiative, due to the limited opportunities offered by the local economy over time. They seek for waged labour posts not only for remuneration but also for upgrading their knowledge with a greater purpose of extending their networking. Eventually, as an Italian informant notes “approximately half of the participants manage to sign a first contract but only a few succeed to sign long-term contracts”.
Furthermore, jobless young people in disadvantageous regions pin their hopes on this policy to change their social status. As stated by a different Italian informant “the higher the number of NEETs, the higher the number of potential young people who need to enter the social structures, which means more YG enrollments”. Hence, many young people in less advantageous regions “widely trust YG to provide a small first contact with employers”.
To sum up, YG was implemented in a recessionary context, to provide ‘high quality offers’ of employment or training. While it intended to contribute to vacancy creation, YG eventually has not yet achieved its goals due to a series of factors related to its temporary and without further prospects neoliberal character. Despite the great expectations demonstrated, YG has significant drawbacks such as the limited outlets of offers in a highly precarious context that follow the regional disparities. Therefore, YG cannot guide youth to an integrated labour transition as its design is beyond the idiosyncrasies of the EU South, which are dominated by issues like the significant gap between NEETs and job vacancies. After all, “Youth Guarantee was based on the Nordic models, and for better or worse, we live in the Mediterranean” (Spanish informant).
Author
Efstratia Emmanouil, YOUTHShare PhD candidate University of the Aegean
