Part II: Youth Employment Policy

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Part II Youth Employment Policy

• Niall OHiggins

2
Youth Employment Policy

• National Action
• Aggregate Policies
• Education training
• Active labour Market Policies (Vs. PLMP)
• Labour market regulation
• International Action
• YEN, EES

3
Aggregate Policy

• Employment promoting environment Economic
  Policy
• Emphasis on young people - particulalrly in a
  recession Embedding Youth Employment issues in
  the National Employment Agenda
• Developing an integrated approach

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Education training

• ET as a prepartion for Work
• Related to the quantity and the quality of work
• Bottom line ET systems need to be based on
  labour market needs

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Education training

• Links to the labour market
• - training does not by itself create jobs
• - VET is not an end in itself means to
  facilitate the integration of (young) people into
  decent work
• Consequently,
• - training must be geared to the demand for
  skills in the labour market

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Links to the Labour Market

• Need mechanisms to ensure training is relevant to
  labour market needs
• ? Social Partnership

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Links to the Labour Market

• How?
• Involvement of social partners at a central level
  in the development of policy and legislative
  framework
• Involvement of Social Partners at a decentralised
  level
• formal and informal links Between Social Partners
  Schools

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• Example par excellence is the German Dual System
  characterised by the strong involvement of the
  Social Partners
• Resolved a number of issues including - who
  finances training split between employers,
  trainees and the state
• - information content of certification
• But, rather slow to adapt

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Progress in EU Accession countries

• Need to reform and modernize was widely
  recognised fairly early on in transition, and in
  many countries it is well advanced, however there
  remain areas of concern

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Major developments

• Decentralisation - Autonomy has been given to
  schools - private training providers encouraged
• Comprehensive Legislative Reform embarked upon
• Participation in education, particularly at upper
  secondary tertiary levels has increased

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Areas of concern

• High dropout rates from vocational education
• Mushrooming of bottom up approaches has
  produced many interesting results but has lead
  also to a lack of transparency of the system
  hampering the promotion of mobility and quality
• Development of National Framework for curricula
  followed and is still incomplete
• Effective involvement of the social partners
  remains low particularly at decentralised levels
• Insufficient co-ordination between ministries of
  education and labour
• Guidance counselling mechanisms in both
  education and labour ministries
• Accreditation and quality assurance mechanisms
• Most countries still need a framework for CVT

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CIS SEE

• In CIS to some extent SEE change has been much
  slower
• SEE Governance issues still of crucial
  importance Highly centralised organisation
  funding, limited social partner involvement
• CIS still based on traditional models
• VET spread across different ministries
• VET systems inflexible
• Social partner involvement is not yet
  institutionalised

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Active Labour market policies

• Public Works Programmes
• Wage subsidies
• Labour market training
• Self-Employment Business Support
• Guidance Counselling
• Job Matching Services
• LMI, Monitoring Evaluation

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Public Works Programme

• Initial response to recession following
  transition expansion of passive income support
  introduction of public works
• Generally used for groups with low possibiites of
  finding work provide income maintains to
  msome extent labour market attachment
• Can be useful in creating infrastructure
• Dont promote the long-term employment prospects
  of participants

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Wage Subsidies

• Sometimes used to promote employment of specific
  groups including young people
• Problems with deadweight, Substituion
  displacement
• Question arises that i fthe problems of labour
  market integration of young people is not to do
  with too high wages. Then the effects are likely
  to be limited

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Labour Market training

• Usually labour market based training is more
  adaptable
• In principle should raise both the chances of
  finding work and the wages of participants in
  practice it does the former
• Most effective programmes combine training with
  work experience

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Self-employment Small Business support

• 2 levels
• Facilitate business start-up legislative/adminst
  rative framework
• Direct support for business start-up
• Major Issue need a range of services
  (particularly for young people)
• Access to credit
• Training
• Workspace
• Ongoing support

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Guidance counselling

• Problem faced by young poeple is a lack of
  information on relaistic alternatives
• Relatively cost effective means of helping young
  people
• Can be undertaken By PES, but also by schools (
  by the social partners)
• Depends on the existence of adequate labour
  market infomation

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Job Matching

• PES becomes active in matching job seekers to
  jobs
• Internet (does not have to be done by PES)
• job fairs

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LMI, Monitoring evaluation

• Need to collect adequate LMI
• Monitoring (process evaluation) e.g. target
  group, target numbers, quality of training
• Impact Evaluation

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Involvement of Social Partners

• Comitment
• Relevance
• Quality guarantee training quality
• Advocacy

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Labour Market Regulation

• Minimum Wages
• Evidence is mixed
• Employment Protection Legislation
• Relationship is certainly not strong
• (generosity of) Unemployment Benefits
• Most (but not all) studies show that they
  increase the duration of unemployment
• Reduce exit from unemployment but do not
  necessarily increase entry into employment
• Have a poverty reducing role

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What can (young) trade unionists Do about it?

• Social partner action
• Inform Policy making at the central level
• Practical involvement at local levels, e.g.
• Develop links with schools
• Informational function for young people
• Guarantee quality of training
• Mobilise young people

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What can (young) trade unionists Do about it?

• Dual Need
• Improve the lot of young people in the labour
  market
• Improve the image/increase membership of trade
  unions amongst young people