S o ci a l A ffa ir s II nd a nt e ym lo p Em n o C o m m it te e
THE LOST GENERATION With millions of young people struggling to find a job in Europe, Silvia Susach wonders if we still have time to provide a safe and prosperous future for them?
“A
man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune’s inequality exhibits under this sun”, said Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish historian and writer of the nineteenth century. Sadly, fortune still plays an important role in the story of youth unemployment, since being born German is not the same as being born Greek. Despite both countries’ EU membership the likelihood that young Europeans have to find a job changes radically according to the country they are born or live in. While more than half of the young people in Greece are unemployed, countries like the Netherlands, Germany or Austria show youth unemployment rates below 10%. It seems obvious that, when looking for a job, some of us will have to fight harder than others.
Pa
18
ge
Is
su
e
0
But wait, aren’t we the European…Union? We are more than a few states co-operating in certain policy areas. The bond that ties us all together exceeds merely economic benefits, and the European Union’s aim should be to provide all its citizens with the same opportuni-
ties. Nevertheless, doing so while respecting the competences on employment of the Member States can be tricky, which leads us to a fundamental question: Would more European integration improve the current situation with regards to youth unemployment? Mercè Gómez Ubiergo, a Catalan expert on labour insertion, says that we should head towards deeper European integration whilst respecting the cultural differences of our nations. More integration will ideally lead to more awareness and a greater sense of responsibility towards the problems of the other Member States. Despite the lack of an exclusive competence on employment, the European Union has tried to improve the youth unemployment situation in many different ways. One of the directions that the European Commission has taken is to improve job mobility amongst young people, as stated in initiatives, such as Youth on the Move or Europe 2020, which seems to be a very poor long-term solution. Ms. Gómez Ubiergo believes that improving job mobility is always positive, as long as young people are free to decide whether they want to leave their coun-