Youth Unemployment in the EU: A Scarred Generation? - HL 164

Book excerpt: With the rate of young jobless in the EU still at nearly double its pre-crisis level, and the UK experiencing exceptionally high levels of unemployment, this report calls on the Government to rethink the way it uses European funding. The Government needs to use EU money to support the introduction of a Youth Guarantee, rather than putting the funds towards existing domestic measures such as the Youth Contract. The Youth Contract had underperformed and was not popular in the private sector, while the Youth Guarantee had been successful in other European countries. Five regions in the UK were highlighted in the report as having unemployment levels so high that they qualified for additional EU funding. These areas were: Tees Valley & Durham; West Midlands; South Western Scotland; Inner London; and Merseyside. The Committee is urging the Government use the European funding to run pilot Youth Guarantee schemes in these five areas. Other recommendations made in the report include: a move away from a centralised management of EU funds and make the most of local authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships, who have links to specialist organisations in their areas; when it comes to careers advice, the Government should use EU money to fund more traditional face-to-face careers advice, rather than focusing on online support; and more needs to be done to address the skills mismatch in the EU - a particular example being in ICT