Brussels, 11/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - European initiatives to promote job creation among young people are increasing and are no longer within the exclusive remit of European governments (mini summit in Rome on 14 June and on 3 July in Berlin) but are also being put forward by the social partners. On Tuesday 11 June, they put forward an action framework for tackling youth unemployment aimed at the public authorities and the national social partners. Four major areas are being targeted: learning, transition, employment and entrepreneurship.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), European Centre of Employers and Enterprises providing Public services (CEEP), Business Europe and the UAEPME have jointly drawn up this framework on the basis of around 20 examples of good practice. They presented it in Brussels on Tuesday, before its presentation in a number of European capital cities. They are attempting to address what is being known as the “lost generation”, the 23.5% of young people without jobs in the EU. The social partners emphasised learning, transition, employment and entrepreneurship as priorities and put forward a raft of recommendations and short- and long-term action based on the principle that youth unemployment is a structural problem that has been exacerbated by the crisis. Bernadette Ségol, ETUC General Secretary said, however, that the quartet of social partners is not seeking to “dictate to member states or social partners what to do”. She is hoping, rather, that this framework will generally be translated into concrete action because the objective is full employment and she highlighted the need for quality jobs. She also said that young people shoyuld not be poor or exploited and a stop should be put to over-fifties being thrown on the scrapheap. The director general of BusinessEurope, Markus J. Beyer stated that it was important to make the labour market less rigid and he called for flexibility whilst emphasising that this should not be a synonym for insecurity or an excuse to abuse this flexibility. UEAPME concerns focused on the lack of skilled workers and the disparity between job vacancies and skill sets. Its director of social affairs, Liliane Volozinskis, repeated that young people had to be supported in their efforts to develop entrepreneurship. She said that it was obvious that the action advocated by the social partners required resources and that “to be fully effective such measures should be incentivised by European financial support, like the €6 billion for the Youth Employment Initiative and growth enhancing measures”. (MD/transl.fl)