On 16 May, the paper ‘In what way a ‘Guarantee for youth’? NEETs entrapped by labour market policies in the European Union’, by E. Emmanouil, G. Chatzichristos, A. Herod and S. Gialis prepared in the framework of the project ‘A Place for Youth in Mediterranean EEA: Resilient and Sharing Economies for NEETs (YOUTHShare), was published by the journal of Youth Studies (https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2023.2211943).
The current study adopts a Geographical Political Economy approach to analysing the Youth Guarantee’s underpinnings and the conditions that differentiate its implementation on a regional level, exploring whether–and, if so, how–the YG helps young people in the Southern EU to enter the labour market. The paper introduces the first comparative, cross-regional investigation of the YG programme, targeting the NUTS-II regions of Spain and Italy, using mixed methods, supplementing quantitative analysis with in-depth interviews with key informants. In particular, it explores two important questions: 1) have recent efforts to implement YG Action Plans helped young NEETs (that is, people between 15 and 29 years of age not in employment education or training) in the Southern EU to enter the labour market?; and 2) what are the conditions that differentiate YGs’ implementation at the regional (NUTS-II) level?
It concludes that the patterns of youth inactivity and unemployment are not only the result of the underperformance of the YG programmes, but, also, of assumptions about worker self-improvement that largely ignore the very mechanics of how labour markets actually work. Such assumptions reaffirm spatial inequalities and the potential for young workers to be kept in a perpetual state of precarious employment, at least in the Southern EU countries where economic reality means that secure, well-paid jobs are generally not being created. This reinforces an argument, largely ignored by neoliberal economic theory, that it is not workers’ incentives to improve their own employability that create decent jobs but, rather, it is the nature of capitalist economies that does or does not (Wright 2000) – in other words, if decent jobs are not being created, it does not matter much whether young people have the skills to do them or not.
Effie Emmanouil PhD candidate, University of the Aegean, YOUTHShare Project
References
Wright, E. O.2000.“Working-Class Power, Capitalist-Class Interests, and Class Compromise.” American Journal of Sociology105 (4): 957–1002.doi:10.1086/210397.
