(Reuters) – European Union leaders are expected to set aside more than 5 billion euros from the EU budget to tackle the bloc’s soaring and costly youth unemployment when they meet for a summit in Brussels on Thursday.
The aim is to get to grips with the debilitating unemployment caused by the region’s debt and economic crisis. There are estimates that youth joblessness is costing the EU up to 150 billion euros a year, or around 1.2 percent of GDP.
Youth unemployment now exceeds 25 percent in 13 of the EU’s 27 member states, while more than half of those aged 15-24 in Spain and Greece out of work. Economists warn of a lost generation unless a way is found to resolve the problem.
“High youth unemployment has dramatic consequences for our economies, our societies and above all for young people,” Laszlo Andor, the European commissioner for employment, said when he presented plans for a fund late last year.
If leaders can agree – and that depends on them ...
[Source independent.ie]
Ireland’s welfare system should be a springboard as well as a safety net for our unemployed, writes Joan Burton
Let’s start with the figures, because they’re simply horrendous. Across Europe right now, 5.5 million young people – one in five of those aged between 15 and 24 who are on the labour market – are without a job. In some individual member states, the situation is even worse.
In Spain and Greece, it’s one in every two young people on the labour market, with youth unemployment rates above 50 per cent. In Ireland, the rate is 32 per cent, which corresponds to about 61,000 young people.
This is not just a problem. It’s an existential crisis for the European Union. The economic cost has been estimated at more than €150bn a year, or 1.2 per cent of EU GDP. But how do we measure the social cost, the terrible and potentially lasting effects of unemployment on the young people themselves?
The internationally respected economists David Bell and David Blanchflower found that even a short spell of unemployment when young can have devastating effects throughout a person’s life.
Youth unemployment increases the lik...
Read MoreHere you will find the Irish Presidency of the EU overview of priorities: youth unemployment is one of the main features.
In the EU Article attached Irish MEPs have defined their different hopes for the Irish Presidency, two of the MEPs listed the youth unemployment issue as their top priority and another focused on austerity measures:
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