The PES report on youth unemployment has now been translated by our campaigners into Italian.
A big thank you to the translators!

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This afternoon Minister Joan Burton, Emer Costello MEP and Deputy John Lyons were in Ballymun to mark the announcement of funding for a year-long pilot Youth Guarantee project in Ballymun.

Ballymun was selected as one of the first Youth Guarantee schemes to proceed in the EU following funding approval by the European Commission and the Government.

Original article

Le cifre parlano di una dramma sociale in essere: i giovani ‘under 25′ disoccupati, nei 28 paesi Ue, sono arrivati a ben sei milioni di unita’, portando la media europea ad uno su quattro, con punte di sei su dieci in Grecia, uno su due in Spagna e quattro su dieci in Italia dove, a fronte del 12,2% complessivo, il tasso di disoccupazione giovanile e’ del 38,5%.

‘The youth unemployment crisis is the legacy of 3 years of Conservative inaction’, says Chancellor candidate

Meeting in advance of a round table on youth unemployment in Berlin, PES Ministers have made a strong call to speed up European Union (EU) efforts to overcome youth unemployment. The Ministers were joined by German Social Democratic Party (SPD) candidate for Chancellor, Peer Steinbrück. 

Original article

According to the June edition of the EU Employment and Social Situation Quarterly Review, the social situation in the EU remains serious with the highest unemployment and the lowest employment figures since the onset of the crisis. These negative trends continue to affect particularly the southern members of the EU and young people. The Review states that nearly a quarter of economically active young people in the EU are unemployed. In this context, the Review underlines the risk that young people working on short-term contracts involuntarily could remain trapped in insecure working conditions.

Photo by SDP Finland

Original article published on Turun Sanomat

Euroopan talouskriisin varjossa kytee vaikutuksiltaan pitkäaikainen sosiaalinen kriisi. Nuorisotyöttömyys on riistäytymässä käsistä. Tilanteen vaikutukset näkyvät pitkälle tulevaisuuteen, jopa seuraavaan sukupolveen asti.

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE EUROPEAN YOUTH GUARANTEE

How to guarantee a brighter future for young people?

FRIDAY, 12 JULY, 9.15am-1pm 

LIBERTY HALL, DUBLIN 1

Youth unemployment is the biggest single challenge facing Europe. The European Union is providing €6 billion to help combat youth unemployment in Ireland and across Europe.

These funds will be spent to implement Youth Guarantee programmes in areas with high rates (above 25%) of youth unemployment.

These programmes are intended to offer a young person quality employment, training, an apprenticeship or further education within four months of finishing their education or becoming unemployed.

Most of these European funds will be spent in 2014 and 2015. The Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has now brokered agreement on a European-wide framework for the Youth Guarantee.

The next six months are therefore crucial for the design of Ireland's Youth Guarantee programmes.  

This public event is intended to enable young people and organisations working on their behalf outline how they believe the Youth Guarantee should be implemented in Ireland so that it will make a real impact on our youth employment crisis and to guarantee a brighter future for young people.  

Participants (see agenda below) will include representatives of youth organisations, local partnership groups, unemployed groups, and Government and European bodies involved in preparing Youth Guarantee programmes.

As places are limited, if you would like to attend this public seminar, please register by contacting me at [email protected] or 01.8746109 before 5.00pm on Wednesday, 10 July.

AGENDA

9.15am            Registration (refreshments provided)

9.45am            Welcome and introduction

Emer Costello MEP, Leader, Irish Delegation, Socialists and Democrats Group, Member EP Committee on Employment & Social Affairs.

10-11.15am     Tackling youth unemployment through the Youth Guarantee

Lidia Salvatore, Eurofound

David Treacy, City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee

Mary Murphy, NUI Maynooth,

Lorraine Mulligan, SIPTU Trade Union

11.15-11.30     Coffee break

11.30-12.45     Ensuring the effective implementation of the Youth Guarantee

Ita Mangan, Chair of the Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare

Brid O’Brien, Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed

James Doorley, National Youth Council of Ireland

Mick Creedon, Ballymun Job Centre

12.45               Closing Remarks

Emer Costello MEP.

I feel uneasy about this campaign. How many new jobs will it create? The phrasing is "jobs or training or apprenticeships". If employers are not interested in increasing production, because purchasing power stagnates or decreases, there will be not more jobs, but less. Unless public authorities create the jobs, in the health and elderly sector, in the building industry... Employers will try to replace normal full-time jobs by apprenticeships.

In preparation for today’s and tomorrow’s European Council (27-28 June), PES Prime Ministers and Deputy Prime Ministers gathered in Brussels to give a concerted and substantial push to combat youth unemployment in Europe. During the preparation meeting, the PES leaders called for concrete actions to implement the Youth Guarantee at European and national level, as well as additional funding to extend the scope and impact of the scheme. This major push mirrored the strong actions taken by PES Member Parties across Europe in the last few days.

Bundesregierung verweigert im Ministerrat weitere Hilfe gegen Arbeitslosigkeit in Europa

Jugendliche ohne Jobs bekommen keine zusätzliche Hilfe aus dem neuen EU-Programm für Beschäftigung und soziale Innovation (EaSI), auf dass sich das Europäisches Parlament, Ministerrat und EU-Kommission am Mittwochabend verständigt haben.