EUROPEAN COMMISSION Brussels, 1.7.2020 SWD(2020) 124 final COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Accompanying the document Proposal for a Council Recommendation on a Bridge to Jobs - reinforcing the Youth Guarantee {COM(2020) 277 final}



Synopsis 1. Introduction 2. Lessons from the previous economic recession 2.1. Turning the tide of youth unemployment and inactivity 2.2. Broadening inclusiveness: a wider age bracket 10 2.3. Deepening inclusiveness: the hardest-to-reach vulnerable groups 14 2.4. Acknowledging the changes to the world of work and skills 22 3. Lessons from the Youth Guarantee 2013-20 25 3.1. Monitoring and evaluation 25 3.1.1. The European Semester 26 3.1.2. Multilateral surveillance by the Employment Committee 29 3.1.3. The role of EU funding support 31 3.1.4. European Parliament reports 33 3.1.5. European Court of Auditors’ performance audits 35 3.2. Targeted consultations of relevant stakeholders 36 4. Reinforcing the Youth Guarantee to step up youth employment support 40

4.1. Phase 1: Mapping 40 4.1.1. Identifying the target group, available services and skills needs 41 4.1.2. Enabling prevention through tracking and early warning systems 43 4.2. Phase 2: Outreach 44 4.2.1. Raising awareness and targeting communication 45 4.2.2. Stepping up the outreach to vulnerable groups 46 4.3. Phase 3: Preparation 47 4.3.1. Using profiling tools to tailor individualised action plans 48 4.3.2. Performing counselling, guidance and mentoring 49 4.3.3. Enhancing digital skills with preparatory training 51 4.3.4. Assessing, improving and validating other important skills 54 4.4. Phase 4: Offer 59 4.4.1. Making employment and start-up incentives work during the economic recession 59 4.4.2. Aligning the offer to existing standards to ensure quality and equity 62 4.4.3. Providing post-placement support and implementing feedback 66 4.5. Crosscutting enablers 67 4.5.1. Mobilising partnerships 68 4.5.2. Improving the data collection and monitoring of schemes 70 4.5.3. Making full and optimal use of funds 72



Synopsis The COVID-19 pandemic has spiralled the EU into the deepest recession in its history. Young people are likely to be victimised disproportionately, as they are often easier laid off than more experienced workers, or yet to enter the labour market when many sectors are no longer hiring. It is clear that the EU cannot afford another protracted youth employment crisis. Without helping young people in their school-to-work and early job-to-job transitions, Member States risk scarring effects that snowball throughout an individual’s working life, and add up to detrimental consequences for the EU’s social market economy at large. At the same time, it pays remembering that the EU has been in a similar situation before. The economic recession that followed the global 2008 financial crisis also plunged millions of young people across all Member States into unemployment or inactivity. At the peak of that youth employment crisis, in 2013, the EU embarked upon an ambitious, coordinated active labour market policy measure that went on to have a major transformative effect, creating opportunities for young people, driving structural reforms and innovation, and improving and expanding public employment services everywhere. It was called the Youth Guarantee. While not the only factor contributing to overall improvement in young people’s opportunities, the Youth Guarantee helped lower peak rates of young people neither in employment nor education and training (NEETs) to record lows just before the COVID-19 pandemic. It did so by offering them a quality offer of employment, continued education, apprenticeships or traineeships within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving school. Over 24 million young people who were once registered in Youth Guarantee schemes started an offer, providing them – during those first, precarious years of one’s working life – with a stepping stone towards stable labour market integration. This indisputable success story cannot only be repeated – it can be built upon to help even greater numbers of young people, strengthen the support that is given them, and avoid the hardest-to-reach being overlooked in the process. The 2013-20 implementation of the Youth Guarantee has yielded an astounding wealth of good practice examples, useful experiences from the ground and other inspiring ideas – whether stemming from years of EU level monitoring and evaluation, or stakeholders such as civil society, social partners, Youth Guarantee providers and young people themselves. Such lessons also draw attention to the pitfalls and shortcomings of the Youth Guarantee as it was implemented in the aftermath of the previous economic recession. Two important examples bear repeating here. The first is that temporary NEETs, often actively looking for work without inherent disadvantages holding them back, took precedence over longer-term NEETs who belong to certain vulnerable groups and require more intensive, sometimes one-to-one support. The second is that the world of work and skills has been changing and continues to do so, with an increasing prevalence of non-standard forms of work, increasingly precarious school-to-work transitions and more frequent job-to-job transitions. Beyond the short-term, immediate crisis response, Youth Employment Support (YES) is a central component of the medium-term, comprehensive recovery plan to get back to a normal functioning of society. Therein lies an opportunity to come out of the economic recession stronger, choosing resilient, future-proof solutions over quick fixes and temporary stopgaps. This means that the EU’s twin transitions to a sustainable and digital economy have to be ingrained in the DNA of YES. The Commission’s proposal for a Council Recommendation on a Bridge to Jobs - reinforcing the Youth Guarantee is a central component of YES. This report aims to combine the lessons learnt with the broader implications of a social market economy in transition, feeding into a Youth Guarantee that maintains an inclusive approach, but also helps accelerate the much-needed green and digital transitions, acknowledging both the opportunities and volatilities that come with them. Moreover, a reinforced Youth Guarantee recognises that, at least for some time to come, the share of temporary NEETs will increase – and some of them will require a lighter approach compared to the more intensive, comprehensive interventions that longer-term NEETs are likely to necessitate. Though the distinction between temporary NEETs and longer-term NEETs is a simplification, it is helpful to summarise the four phases of a reinforced Youth Guarantee through different examples. The distinction illustrates the Youth Guarantee at its “lightest” for the temporary NEETs versus the Youth Guarantee at its most “complex” for the longer-term NEETs. In reality, these temporary and longer-term NEETs are the extremes on a scale, with the latter receiving a “topped up” approach when compared to the former.

A reinforced Youth Guarantee for temporary NEETs Higher educated young people, or those already with significant work experience, are more likely to belong to the temporary NEETs, perhaps laid off during the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, or unable to enter certain sectors because of it, but without inherent vulnerabilities underlying their temporary predicament. Before any contact is even established, Youth Guarantee providers can try to gauge the ramifications of the economic recession in the “catchment area” that falls under their purview. They can also ensure that the mapping phase is informed by local/regional skills forecasts, using big data labour market intelligence about what skills are most in demand and where. Figure 1. The four phases of a reinforced Youth Guarantee with examples particularly relevant to the least complex temporary NEETs. Reaching out to the temporary NEETs is not as straightforward as it may seem, as many of them might never have thought about job or training support. Awareness raising is therefore vital, and online opportunities using social media or smartphone apps provide ample opportunities to do so. Targeting communication is facilitated by a consistently adopted visual style that young people can recognise and associate with job or training support, together with a single web portal where all preliminary information and referrals can be found. Once contact is established, temporary NEETs register with their Youth Guarantee providers and the four-month preparatory phase starts. During this phase, the emphasis is on career advice, teaching young people about the changing world of work and skills, against a backdrop of economic recession and sectoral changes due to the green and digital transitions. Here, raising awareness of the possible chances and perspectives connected to self-employment is also important, including through closer cooperation between employment services, start-up support services and microfinance providers. The remainder of the preparatory phase for temporary NEETs is dedicated to assessing their skills, upskilling or reskilling where needed, and making sure learning outcomes are easily recognised through certifications. While skill domains in need of strengthening depend on the young person in question and the skills and vacancy mapping conducted at an earlier stage, four domains deserve special emphasis: digital skills (aiming to fill the many vacancies expected in the digital transition), skills needed for the green transition (preparing young people for opportunities in the growing green sector), entrepreneurial skills (allowing young people to profit from the perspectives connected to self-employment) and career management skills (making sure young people have the adaptability to enter an uncertain labour market). The Youth Guarantee’s preparatory training can provide a possibility to get activated and inspired, for example through crash courses, workshops or boot camps. With the preparatory phase spent proactively, temporary NEETs are ready to take up an offer of employment, continued education, apprenticeship or traineeship. During the new economic recession, targeted and well-designed employment and start-up incentives will create opportunities where market functioning would otherwise fail to do so. Youth Guarantee providers can, moreover, safeguard the quality of the offer by urging employers to respect the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights, such as access to social protection, reasonable duration of probation periods and prohibiting abuse of atypical contracts. A reinforced Youth Guarantee for longer-term NEETs Young people from vulnerable groups are more likely to belong to the target group of longer-term NEETs, requiring extra efforts from the perspective of the Youth Guarantee schemes. Their NEET status can be a symptom of multiple, more engrained disadvantages and may indicate a longer-term disengagement from society as a whole. The vulnerable groups singled out in this report are young people with low education attainment, in long-term unemployment, from migrant backgrounds, rural or remote regions, with caring responsibilities and suffering from an illness or disability. Figure 2. The four phases of a reinforced Youth Guarantee with examples particularly relevant to the hardest-to-reach longer-term NEETs.

For longer-term NEETs, the mapping phase is of the utmost importance, as it underpins all subsequent support. On top of what Youth Guarantee providers would undertake in the context of temporary NEETs, there is a need to profoundly understand different types of disadvantages, which are sometimes interacting and often started having detrimental consequences years before a young person obtained the NEET status. Using sophisticated tracking and early warning systems – and working together with schools – Youth Guarantee providers can also aim to identify at-risk youth, providing early support and giving advice in a more preventative approach. Subsequently, proactive outreach means building trust, informing the hardest-to-reach and those facing multiple barriers about support available in their transition from school to work and the necessary steps to take to profit from this support. Clear access points in the form of one-stop-shops are essential. Outreach requires specifically trained mediators and complementary strategies such as street work, young “ambassadors” and cooperation with partners that are in contact with specific groups of young people. For the hardest-to-reach, outreach can be coordinated with the provision of benefits, using the occasion to inform them in an open way about rights and opportunities. Once longer-term NEETs register with their Youth Guarantee providers and the four-month preparatory phase starts, appropriate profiling and screening tools are needed to tailor individualised action plans that not only help the young person towards accepting a job or training offer, but also support them in various other ways. The latter often requires referring disadvantaged young people to other social services, such as childcare, healthcare, psychological support, social housing, accessibility services and transport - altogether enabling a more holistic, person-centred approach. Such profiling and screening tools again require specialist staff, who are trained to face this challenging task without overwhelming and deterring the longer-term NEETs in the process. Counselling, guidance and mentoring are needed for longer-term NEETs throughout the preparatory phase and beyond, helping them overcome certain barriers and making sure that disadvantages do not become further entrenched. It often requires a considerable amount of intensive, one-to-one support, but experience on the ground also shows the benefit of peer support and working in groups in which members share the same experiences. Whichever format is adopted, counselling, guidance and mentoring includes motivational work and advocacy, making sure longer-term NEETs understand not only their potential but also their rights. Assessing, improving and validating skills takes pride of place in the preparatory phase, much the same as it does for more temporary, less disadvantaged NEETs. Yet there are crucial differences. Firstly, longer-term NEETs might have struggled at school, and their abilities and potential may not be immediately evident by looking at formal qualifications. However, a skilled adviser who has created a trusted relationship with them can help to draw the necessary information out. Secondly, the Youth Guarantee’s preparatory training might have to be offered in smaller, bite-sized modules, acknowledging the fact that commencing a long training course can be an unrealistic or unsuitable option for many longer-term NEETs. Thirdly, rather than a full certification or qualification, micro-credentials can be used and accumulated, so as to recognise and validate preparatory training of short duration. Finally, a good quality Youth Guarantee offer does not widen or further entrench disadvantages experienced by longer-term NEETs. Early career patterns of vulnerable groups are known to be fragile, and Youth Guarantee offers might have very different effects for temporary NEETs and longer-term NEETs. Even in times of economic recession, young people can receive an equally good quality Youth Guarantee offer. Three preconditions are worth emphasising here. One is awareness raising on the side of the employer, confronting any prejudices and clarifying rights and obligations. The second comprises wage subsidies to encourage the employment of longer-term NEETs. The third is the importance of post-placement support, using follow-up monitoring to ensure that measures targeting vulnerable groups have a lasting, positive impact on the participants. The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an unprecedented challenge to the EU budget and its ability to flexibly address, among others, sudden shocks to employment across the Member States. At this critical juncture, Next Generation EU – through REACT-EU, the proposed new Recovery and Resilience Facility and the 2021-27 funding period – will act as a comprehensive Recovery Plan for Europe, ensuring that strategic priorities such as YES and its reinforced Youth Guarantee remain at the top of the agenda. In this respect, priority operations for which EU funds can be mobilised include, among many others, capacity building of public employment services, reinforced mapping and early warning systems and training sessions of short duration. A reinforced Youth Guarantee provides the framework for selecting Member State priorities in a joint effort to avert a new youth employment crisis.

1.Introduction The infrastructure to provide young people with job or training offers is already in place

Just when youth unemployment was at a record low, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a global economic collapse. The Commission’s Spring 2020 Economic Forecast predicts that the EU economy will shrink by 7.4% in 2020, the deepest recession in its history. While it is too early to gauge the speed of recovery, it is clear that severe consequences will be felt across many sectors for some time to come. Young people face a double risk, with many of them easier laid off than more experienced workers, and others unable to enter sectors that are no longer hiring. In the short term, the Commission proposed a resolute, ambitious and coordinated policy response, alleviating the immediate impact on employment. The Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative (CRII) facilitated the deployment of the European Social Fund (ESF). Moreover, the Commission further increased its response by proposing to set up a EUR 100 billion solidarity instrument to help workers keep their incomes and help businesses stay afloat, called SURE. As an important part of the crisis response, short-time work schemes have proven effective in a number of Member States, allowing for temporary reduction of working hours while supporting the income of the workers. In the medium term, the Commission is focused on a comprehensive recovery plan to get back to a normal functioning of society at large. Sustainable growth can be achieved by drawing the lessons from the current crisis, without overlooking the lessons from the previous economic recession. This means maintaining an inclusive approach that supports vulnerable groups, but also an approach that helps accelerate the much needed green and digital transitions. The EU cannot afford another protracted youth employment crisis. The silver lining is that the infrastructure for a profound active labour market policy intervention coordinated at EU level is already in place. In 2013, when, at the peak of the previous youth employment crisis, youth unemployment stood at 24.4%, the Council Recommendation on establishing a Youth Guarantee was adopted. Member States committed that all people under 25 receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education. The Youth Guarantee has created opportunities for young people and acted as a powerful driver for structural reforms and innovation. As a result, the majority of public employment services (PES) have improved and expanded their services for young people. In about seven years’ time, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were approximately 1.7 million fewer young people neither in employment nor in education or training (NEETs) across the EU. Youth unemployment had dropped to a record low of 14.9% by February 2020, mere weeks before pandemic-related lockdowns were put in place across the EU. Though an improving macro-economic context certainly played a role, evidence suggests that the Youth Guarantee had a major transformative effect. Over 24 million young people who were once registered in Youth Guarantee schemes started an offer of employment, continued education, apprenticeships and traineeships. This success story can be repeated. A reinforced Youth Guarantee draws lessons from the past Despite the indisputable success story of the Youth Guarantee, still too many young people were unemployed or inactive by the time the COVID-19 crisis hit the EU in early 2020. Others found only low wage, temporary and non-standard jobs, with more frequent job transitions becoming the norm. Young people with disabilities, those with a migrant background and young parents were at an even greater risk of falling behind. A reinforced Youth Guarantee, should draw lessons from the past and strengthen inclusiveness, while at the same time acknowledging the changing world of work and skills. Indeed, when shifting from the short term crisis response to the medium term recovery plan, there is an opportunity to come out of the new economic recession stronger, choosing resilient, future-proof solutions over quick fixes and temporary stopgaps. This means that the EU’s twin transitions to a sustainable and digital economy have to be ingrained in the DNA of a comprehensive, coordinated active labour market policy intervention that is a reinforced Youth Guarantee. Firstly, climate change and environmental degradation require the EU to adapt its economy. Job growth is expected to be concentrated in green(ing) sectors, both in industry and services, while job losses are expected to occur in carbon intensive sectors, affecting in particular regions with high employment in such sectors. With the European Green Deal , the EU has marked its ambition to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. This is the green transition referred to throughout this report. Changes to formal education, re-skilling and upskilling are necessary to help young people seize opportunities from the growing green economy.

Secondly, the digital economy of tomorrow should not leave any young person behind. It is expected that artificial intelligence and robotics alone will create almost 60 million new jobs worldwide in the next five years, while many jobs will change or even disappear. New technologies will generate new job opportunities and allow for more flexible work arrangements, yet new jobs should also be quality jobs and people should be equipped with the right skills to take them up. For young people in particular this transition brings opportunities but also challenges; all young people will need to demonstrate at least a basic level of digital skills to broaden their employment prospects, while showing resilience to a higher degree of labour market volatility. The European Pillar of Social Rights is the Commission’s social strategy to make sure that the transitions of climate neutrality and digitalisation are socially fair and just. The 2020 Commission Communication “ A Strong Social Europe for Just Transitions ” set out the plans for implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights. Part of this implementation is a reinforced Youth Guarantee. It should aim to repeat the success story of 2013-20 during the new economic recession brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. But it should also build on this potential through greater acknowledgment of the green and digital transitions, supporting all young people to make the most of new opportunities. A reinforced Youth Guarantee will apply the lessons learnt in the past and bring it more in line with the evolving needs of a changing labour market. The outline of this report This report accompanies the Commission’s proposal for a Council Recommendation on a Youth Bridge to Jobs – reinforcing the Youth Guarantee. It provides an overview of all the EU level monitoring and evaluation conducted since the first implementation of the Youth Guarantee, and takes into account the outcomes of various recent consultation activities. All this information and evidence, alongside numerous good practice examples from across the Member States, feed into the four phases of a reinforced Youth Guarantee. The report starts with an overview of the most important lessons stemming from the aftermath of the previous economic recession (Chapter 2), followed by a comprehensive summary of the lessons stemming from the Youth Guarantee’s 2013-20 implementation (Chapter 3). The latter originate from numerous monitoring and evaluation exercises at EU level (Section 3.1), but also from the rich volume of feedback received during targeted consultations in early 2020, when the Commission reached out to, among others, civil society, social partners, national stakeholders and young people themselves (Section 3.2). Together, the many lessons learned during the previous economic recession and the Youth Guarantee’s 2013-20 implementation translate into a number of actions for a reinforced Youth Guarantee (Chapter 4). The four phases detailed in Chapter 4 follow the Commission’s proposal for a new Council Recommendation, which retools the Youth Guarantee to face the new economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 crisis with greater resilience. Box 1. What does the Youth Guarantee offer look like? Cumulatively since their launch there have been 36.2 million entries into Youth Guarantee schemes. About 34.6 million have meanwhile exited the process, leaving 1.5 million still registered at the end of 2018 (using the latest available data). No fewer than 24.7 million (71.3%) are known to have taken up an offer in the form of employment, continued education, apprenticeships or traineeships. Of these 24.7 million, 18 million opportunities came from the open market and 6.7 million were partially or fully funded through public money. Firstly, 18.2 million young people took up an employment offer (about 74% of all offers), of which about 1.6 million were subsidised. Subsidised employment offers are active labour market policy (ALMP) measures implemented by public employment services (PES) and typically include hiring incentives, direct job creation programmes (public works) and start-up incentives. Hiring incentives are one of the most common types of ALMP measures included in Youth Guarantee schemes and generally take the form of wage subsidies or reductions in hiring costs through social security bonuses. Almost two thirds of Member States have started putting these hiring incentives in place. Direct employment creation programmes and start-up incentives have been much less common.

Secondly, only 2.2 million went back to education (about 9% of all offers). It is clear that the potential to upskill young people and to ensure that they gain qualifications that facilitate access to the labour market could be further exploited. However, promoting continued education offers to low-qualified young people can be challenging. The young people in question may have struggled during their time in the education and training system; they might prefer practical on-the-job learning; they are keen to earn a living or their current personal situation may not allow them to return to full-time education. This report looks into diversifying the continued education offer. Thirdly, of the total of 24.7 million open market and subsidised offers, 1.2 million started an apprenticeship (less than 5% of all offers). For many young people who choose an apprenticeship, this may be their first experience in the world of work. Ideally, a welcoming and supportive work environment with good learning opportunities can be motivating and contribute to attaining a qualification. But work-based learning can also be discouraging and lead to early leaving from education and training, in particular if there is a mismatch between the learners’ expectations and the reality of the profession, or when the young person lacks work readiness. Fourthly, 3.1 million young people took up a traineeship (amounting to less than 13% of all offers). Traineeships are understood as a limited period of work practice, whether paid or not, which includes a learning and training component, undertaken in order to gain practical and professional experience with a view to improving employability and facilitating the transition to regular employment. A large share of traineeship offers within the Youth Guarantee are fully or partly subsidised with public money. 2.Lessons from the previous economic recession The Youth Guarantee was designed in response to the high youth unemployment rates in many Member States during the economic recession that followed the global 2008 financial crisis. Though the Youth Guarantee cannot fully be attributed the decline in youth unemployment since then, it did have a major transformative effect. Facing a new economic recession in 2020, this chapter sums up a few important lessons from tackling youth unemployment during the previous one. The first lesson is a positive one, which is that a coordinated active labour market policy intervention at EU level can turn the tide of youth unemployment and inactivity. The remaining lessons summed up here are cautionary tales for a reinforced Youth Guarantee in 2020. Inclusiveness will have to be broadened and deepened, reaching a wider population of young people but also strengthening the efforts to not leave the hardest-to-reach by the wayside. Finally, the world of work has changed since the previous crisis, and young people now need the tools to face its precariousness with greater resilience. 2.1.Turning the tide of youth unemployment and inactivity As can be seen in Figure 3, the youth unemployment rate (15 to 24 years) skyrocketed during the economic recession of 2008, with a peak of 24.4% in 2013 (the year the Youth Guarantee was launched). During the peak of 2013, youth unemployment was particularly high in Greece (58.3%), Spain (55.5%), Croatia (50.0%), Italy (40.0%), Cyprus (38.9%), Portugal (38.1%) and Slovakia (33.7%). As of 2019, it remained over 30% in Greece (35.2%) and Spain (32.5%). The youth unemployment rate decreased dramatically between 2013 and the record lows before the COVID-19 crisis. However, it has always remained more than double the unemployment rate observed for the adult (25 to 74 years) and total (15 to 74 years) population, pointing to a structural challenge even in the absence of economic recessions.

Figure 3. The 2006-19 evolution of youth, adult and total unemployment rates (EU27). Source: Eurostat database (online data code lfsa_urgaed). Unlike the unemployment rate, the NEET rate compares young people neither in employment nor in education or training with the total population of the same age group (Figure 4). In other words, it covers both the active and inactive population but splits up both groups: the active population between unemployed and employed and the inactive population between those not in education or training and those in education and training. Figure 4. The 2006-19 evolution of NEET rates, by labour status (EU27). Source: Eurostat database (online data code edat_lfse_20). Note: Indicator covers the 15 to 24 year-old age group. In contrast with indicators like the unemployment rate and unemployment ratio, the NEET rate includes a part of the inactive population in its focus (numerator). This is a first indication of how diverse the NEET target group really is. Inactive NEETs are not seeking employment because of, for instance, their own illness or disability, their caring responsibilities for children or incapacitated adults or other personal or family responsibilities. In fact, as is evident from Figure 4, changes in the NEET rate across an economic recession are largely due to unemployment rather than inactivity, the latter posing a challenge that is more stable over time. As youth unemployment decreased between the peak of 2013 and the COVID-19 crisis, the share of inactive NEETs increased. While the latter amounted to 46.9% of the whole group of NEETs in 2013, it made up 59.4% of the total in 2019. Drawing a lesson from the previous economic recession, it is to be expected that the share of unemployed NEETs will increase quite rapidly, before giving way again to the more persistent challenge of inactivity among young people. 2.2.Broadening inclusiveness: a wider age bracket Section 2.1 focused on the labour market status of young people aged 15 to 24. It is the Commission’s proposal, however, to extend the Youth Guarantee to all young people up to 29. There are four reasons for widening the age bracket. Firstly, it broadens the inclusiveness of the Youth Guarantee’s outreach. Secondly, it acknowledges that school-to-work transitions and a stable labour market integration are taking longer because of a changing nature of work and skills (Section 2.4). Thirdly, it recognises that, during the economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a not insignificant share of 25 to 29 year-olds will fall into unemployment and require support. Fourthly, widening the age bracket would align the Youth Guarantee with the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) target group and, more importantly, with national practices: youth related measures and programmes are generally available for young people up to 29, and over 60% of the Member States already consider young people aged 25-29 part of the Youth Guarantee target group.

The prevalence of NEETs has always been higher in older age groups than it has been in the younger ones (see Figure 5). Using annual averages for 2019 as an example, widening the age bracket from 15-24 to 15-29 increases the NEET rate across the EU from 10.1% to 12.6%. In absolute numbers, NEETs across the EU grow from 4.8 million to 9.4 million young people. However, taking into account that the majority of Member States have already adopted the 15-29 age bracket, the absolute number of NEETs increases from a much higher starting position of about 8.2 million, amounting only to an approximate 14% increase. Figure 5. The 2006-19 evolution of NEET rates, by age group (EU27). Source : Eurostat database (online data code edat_lfse_20). Figure 6 illustrates the NEET rate among 15 to 29 year-olds across the Member States as it stood in 2019, broken down by more precise age groups (i.e. the old 15 to 24 year-old bracket plus its extension of 25 to 29 year-olds). For comparative purposes, the horizontal markers on each bar represent the total NEET rate among the 15-24 and 15-29 age groups. The 25 to 29 year-olds make up around half of the new 15-29 target group and, as a consequence, the new NEET rate is higher in all countries but for Malta. Figure 6. Cross-EU comparison of NEET rates, by age group (2019). Source: Eurostat database. Note: countries are in descending order according to their 2019 total average NEET rate among 15 to 29 year-olds. Extending the age bracket not only means widening the focus to an additional group of young people. As evident from Figure 7, the newly added 25 to 29 year-old group is also configured differently in terms of labour market status. For instance, in the newly added 25 to 29 year-old group, employment (without education) is much more prevalent and education (without employment) much less so when compared to younger age groups. Figure 7. Young people in education and/or in the labour force by age (EU27, 2019). Source: Eurostat calculations based on the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS). Note: education or training covers both formal and non-formal learning. Figure 8 summarises the 2019 labour market status of 15 to 29 year olds in four broad categories and splits up the results by larger age groups and sex. Crucially, when it comes to the NEET rate (in blue), there is a slight decrease among men from age 20-24 (13.6%) to age 25-29 (12.6%), while there is a relatively pronounced increase among women between these age groups (from 15.4% to 21.9%).

Figure 8. Labour market status of young people by age group and sex (EU27, 2019). Source: Eurostat database (online data code edat_lfse_18). The NEET rate among women was already higher than among men in the 15-24 age group, with a difference of 0.6 percentage points on average across the EU. With the 15-29 age group, using 2019 data, the average NEET rate among women was 3.8 percentage points higher than the NEET rate among men (Figure 9). While the difference was less than one percentage point in some Member States (Luxembourg, Lithuania, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Latvia), it was more than 10 percentage points in others (Czechia, Romania). Figure 9. Cross-EU comparison of NEET rates (15-29 age bracket), by sex (2019). Source: Eurostat database (online data code edat_lfse_20). Note: countries are in descending order according to their 2019 total average NEET rate among 15 to 29 year-olds. Compared over time, the average NEET rates for 15 to 29 year-olds have been decreasing among both men and women between the peak of 2013 and the record lows before the COVID-19 crisis. However, as it decreased at a slower pace for women than it did for men, the gender gap somewhat increased during these years. On average across the EU, the gap was 3.2 percentage points in 2013 and amounted to 3.8 percentage points by 2019. Importantly, in terms of labour market status, both age brackets capture a large share of inactive women. Figure 10 compares the share of inactivity among male and female NEETs, between the two different age brackets, for 2019. This confirms, firstly, that inactivity is more common among female NEETs than male NEETs regardless of the age bracket used and, secondly, that inactivity shares went up among women in the widened age bracket for the majority of Member States, while it went down among men in most countries. Looking at 2019 and using the 15-29 age bracket, the share of inactivity among male NEETs was 50.0% across the EU on average, compared to 70.5% among female NEETs. Figure 10. Cross-EU comparison of inactivity among male and female NEETs for two different age brackets (2019). Source: Eurostat database (online data codes edat_lfse_20). Note: countries are in descending order according to their 2019 total average NEET rate among 15 to 29 year-olds. 2.3.Deepening inclusiveness: the hardest-to-reach vulnerable groups

As has become clear in previous sections, the NEET target group is very diverse and its sub-groups therefore have different support needs. The NEET status is only temporary for some young people, perhaps laid off during the economic recession brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, or unable to enter certain sectors because of it, but without inherent vulnerabilities underlying their temporary predicament and, as such, low barriers to labour market entry. For other young people, the NEET status can be a symptom of multiple, more engrained disadvantages and may indicate a longer-term disengagement from society as a whole. For simplicity’s sake, the remainder of this report maintains the distinction between young people with a more temporary NEET status and young people with a longer-term NEET status. Higher educated young people, or those already with significant work experience, are more likely to belong to the temporary NEETs, whereas young people from vulnerable groups are more likely to belong to the longer-term NEETs, requiring extra efforts from the perspective of Youth Guarantee schemes. The new economic recession increases the share of temporary NEETs, whereas the share of longer-term NEETs poses a challenge that is more stable over time. While a reinforced Youth Guarantee should deal with the sudden increase of unemployed young people in the short term, it should not lose track of helping the hardest-to-reach inactive or long-term unemployed young people in the medium term. Indeed, deepening inclusiveness means not leaving the most disadvantaged NEETs by the wayside. It is worth pointing out that, given the inevitable time lags associated with the quantitative cross-EU data, all figures in this section predate the COVID-19 crisis. However, they therefore tell a useful cautionary tale about the flipside of the Youth Guarantee’s 2013-20 success story. If the relative disadvantages captured in this section occur during record lows in youth unemployment and NEET rates, it stands to reason that vulnerable groups will only suffer more as the new economic recession takes hold, unless a reinforced Youth Guarantee reaches out to them more proactively, and supports them with more intensive, one-to-one support where needed. Low education attainment The concept of NEET should not be conflated with low levels of education attainment or with early leaving from education and training. Not all young NEETs have a low level of education attainment. In fact, while the 2019 share of NEETs with high (tertiary) education attainment was only 7.7% in the narrower 15-24 age group, it was close to double that value (14.4%) among the 15 to 29 year-olds. It is for these higher educated young people that NEET might only be a temporary status between jobs or before finding a job after finishing their higher education studies. Still, 40.6% of NEETs aged 15 to 29 had at most lower secondary education attainment (Figure 11). That share amounted to over half of all NEETs in Malta (66.5%), Spain (54.6%), Germany (53.6%), Bulgaria (51.4%) and Denmark (50.1%). Fewer than one in five NEETs was low educated in Croatia (14.0%) and Greece (15.8%). Given the difficulties of easing young NEETs back into education and the growing need for at least basic levels in numerous skill domains, the sub-group of lower educated NEETs can be regarded as a particularly vulnerable group. Figure 11. Education attainment of NEETs (2019). Source: Eurostat calculations based on the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS). Note: Individuals aged 15 to 29. Countries are in descending order according to the share of low educated NEETs. Low education equals ISCED 0-2; medium education equals ISCED 3-4; high education equals ISCED 5-8. Data for Malta (high education) lack reliability due to the small sample size. On average, education still constituted a robust shield against unemployment and inactivity in 2019. Among young people with high (tertiary) education attainment, the share of NEETs was below 10% in no fewer than 19 Member States (Figure 12). Even medium education attainment (at the level of upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary) yielded NEET rates below the overall EU average of 12.6% in 16 Member States. Greece was an outlier with a NEET rate of 25.9% among highly educated 15 to 29 year-olds, followed with some distance by Italy (19.5%), Croatia (17.1%) and Cyprus (14.0%). Figure 12. Cross-EU comparison of NEET rates at each level of education attainment (2019).

Source: Eurostat database (online data code edat_lfse_21). Note: Individuals aged 15 to 29. Countries are in descending order according to their 2019 total average NEET rate among 15 to 29 year-olds. The purple horizontal line denotes the EU27 average NEET rate among 15 to 29 year-olds (12.6%). Low education equals ISCED 0-2; medium education equals ISCED 3-4; high education equals ISCED 5-8. Long-term unemployment While some young NEETs are only temporarily unemployed, others have been struggling for a much longer period. The previous economic recession has taught that long-term unemployment (LTU), defined as the share of people who are out of work and have been actively seeking employment for at least a year, has serious consequences for the individual and society at large. It increases the risk of social exclusion, poverty and inequality, while adding to the costs of social services and public finances. LTU leads to a loss of income, an erosion of skills and correlates with a higher incidence of health problems and increased household poverty. Common practice is to compare the share of unemployed who are long-term unemployed with the LTU rate (Figure 13). A low LTU rate and low share of LTU among unemployed implies relatively small numbers of LTU requiring assistance paired with a high turnover of unemployed, while a high LTU rate and high share of LTU among unemployed implies relatively large numbers of LTU requiring assistance paired with low turnover of unemployed. Even in 2019, across the EU on average, although the overall LTU rate among 15 to 29 year-olds was only 3.4%, the share of LTU among unemployed NEETs was a striking 40.6%, making up a sizeable subset of the Youth Guarantee’s target group. Particularly large shares of LTU among the unemployed NEETs were recorded in Greece (64.8%), Italy (58.5%) and Bulgaria (54.5%). Greece and Italy, moreover, also yielded high LTU rates among 15 to 29 year-olds more generally, at 17.1% and 10.9% respectively. Figure 13. Cross-EU comparison of long-term youth unemployment and long-term unemployment among unemployed NEETs (2019). Source: Eurostat estimates based on the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS) for the share of unemployed NEETs (15 to 29 year-olds) who are long-term unemployed; Eurostat database (online data code yth_empl_120) for long-term unemployment rate among 15 to 29 year-olds. The purple lines denote the EU27 average. Data are unavailable for Luxembourg. Data lack reliability for Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Sweden and Slovenia due to small sample sizes. Migrant background Though still a minority, young people born in another country are overrepresented among the NEET target group, as the risk of becoming NEET is higher for them. Across the EU on average, the 2019 share of NEETs was 11.7% for young people born in the country they are questioned, compared to 15.5% for those born in another EU country and no less than 21.7% for young people born in a third (non-EU) country (Figure 14). The situation is even worse when considering only young women from a third country, who face a NEET rate of 29.0%, 2.2 times the rate among native young women (13.2%). Among the Member States with 2019 data available, the difference in NEET rates between young people born in the reporting country and young people born outside the EU was more than 10 percentage points in Greece (21), Belgium (17), Slovenia (16), Germany (13), France (13), Austria (12), Italy (12) and Spain (11).

In addition to “first generation” immigrants, there is also evidence that young people born in their current EU Member State of residence from immigrant parents (sometimes called “second generation”) face higher NEET rates than the average population. This is especially true of those with non-EU born parents. It occurs despite the fact that they were educated in their country of birth in Europe and master the local language. Overall it means that young people with some form of migrant background may account for an estimated share of up to 30% of the NEET population. Figure 14. Cross-EU comparison of NEET rates by grouped country of birth (2018). Source: Eurostat calculations based on the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS). Note: Individuals aged 15 to 29. Countries are in descending order according to their 2019 total average NEET rate among 15 to 29 year-olds. The purple horizontal line denotes the EU27 average NEET rate among 15 to 29 year-olds (12.6%). No data for Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. No data on EU born for Finland, Croatia, Malta, Portugal and Slovenia. Data lack reliability for Czechia (EU born), Denmark (EU born) and Croatia (non-EU born) due to small sample sizes. Regions, rural areas and the gender divide The map in Figure 15 illustrates average 2019 NEET rates at regional level. Before the COVID-19 induced economic recession, especially high average NEET rates were to be found in the Italian regions of Sicily (38.0%), Calabria (35.1%), Campania (34.3%), Puglia (29.7%), Sardinia (27.7%) and Basilicata (26.0%), but also in the Bulgarian region of Severozapaden (29.9%) and the Greek regions of Western Macedonia (26.6%), Central Greece (26.4%) and Voreio Aigaio (25.7%). At the other end of the spectrum, average NEET rates of 5% or lower were found in various Dutch regions (Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland), plus Lower Bavaria (Germany) and the capital region of Lithuania. Averaged at EU level, NEET rates did not differ substantially by degree of urbanisation, contrasting a total average NEET rate of 12.6% against a slightly lower figure for cities (11.7%) and a slightly higher figure for rural areas (13.6%). However, these averages mask a starkly diverse pattern between countries. There were 11 Member States were the average NEET rates in cities, towns, suburbs and rural areas were all below the total average EU NEET rate of 12.6%. This group of countries comprised the Netherlands, Sweden, Luxembourg, Malta, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Portugal, Finland, Denmark and Czechia. Among the remaining 16 Member States, the degree of urbanisation had no uniform effect on NEET rates. In some countries, rural areas were at a clear disadvantage, in contrast to cities, towns and suburbs (Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia), or in contrast only to cities (Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Poland, Ireland, Lithuania, Estonia). In Belgium, cities were performing disproportionately poorly. In Italy, Spain, Cyprus and France, finally, there was very little difference in NEET rates by degree of urbanisation. Figure 15. Average NEET rates at regional level (2019). Source: Eurostat estimates based on the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS). Note: Individuals aged 15 to 29, NUTS2 level. Data not available for Burgenland (Austria), Corsica (France) and Åland (Finland). Data lack reliability due to small sample sizes for the Austrian region of Vorarlberg and the Dutch region of Zeeland. Comparing Figures 15 and 16, it is clear that regional disparities do not always coincide with urban/rural divides. For instance, whereas Italy had the three most underperforming regions of the EU (Sicily, Calabria and Campania), it did not record different NEET rates by degree of urbanisation. Greece and Bulgaria did record strong influences of the degree of urbanisation and have significantly underperforming regions as well. Bulgaria in particular was an outlier when it comes to the average NEET rate in rural areas, at 27.4%.

On average across the EU, a gender gap in NEET rates is to be found across cities, towns, suburbs and rural areas. In 2019, women faced a stronger disadvantage relative to men in rural areas (6.0 percentage points) than they did in cities (2.0 percentage points). Five Member States recorded an average gender gap of over 5 percentage points across all degrees of urbanisation (Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland and Czechia). Rural areas saw particularly striking gender gaps (of over 10 percentage points) in Romania, Hungary, Czechia, Bulgaria, Poland and Estonia; whereas towns and suburbs yielded similarly large gender gaps in Czechia, Slovakia, Estonia, Romania, Hungary and Poland. Figure 16. Cross-EU comparison of NEET rates (in percentages) [A] and gender gap (in percentage points) by degree of urbanisation [B] (2019). A B Source: Eurostat database (online data code edat_lfse_29). Note: Age group 15-29. Countries are in descending order according to their 2019 total average NEET rate among 15 to 29 year-olds. The purple horizontal line in Figure 16A denotes the EU27 average NEET rate among 15 to 29 year-olds (12.6%), while it depicts gender neutrality (a gender gap of 0 percentage points) in Figure 16B. Data partially unavailable for Malta (rural areas) and Luxembourg (females, cities). Data lack reliability due to small sample sizes in Estonia (males, cities and towns/suburbs), Croatia (females, cities), Luxembourg (males, cities) and Slovenia (males, cities and towns/suburbs). Caring responsibilities, disability and other reasons for inactivity Though the unemployed NEETs are a diverse group of young people, the inactive NEETs (not seeking employment) are arguably even more so. Some might be temporarily laid off, awaiting a recall to work, whereas others might be discouraged, believing no job opportunities are available to them. Inactive NEETs also comprise young people with caring responsibilities and young people who are themselves suffering from ill health or disabilities. Using 2019 averages, Figure 17 illustrates how the actual reasons for inactivity among NEETs are different between women (left) and men (right). Caring responsibilities as a reason for inactivity was more than five times as prevalent among women (55.2%) than it was among men (10.6%). Across the EU on average, it was the reason for inactivity for four out of ten inactive NEETs. Figure 17. Breakdown of inactivity among NEETs by reason (2019). Source: Eurostat calculations based on the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS). Note: Individuals aged 15 to 29. “Caring responsibilities” comprise looking after children or incapacitated adults and other personal or family responsibilities. Yearly weights instead of annual averages from the quarterly weights. Some 15.4% of all inactive NEETs across the EU were not seeking employment because of an illness or disability. This share was considerably higher among men (24.4%) than it was among women (10.6%). Although health problems vary significantly in terms of severity and chronicity, it is clear that young people with disabilities are likely to face many challenges to entering the labour market, including negative preconceptions about their work capacities and lower educational achievements due to exclusionary training practices. Key is that young people with disabilities receive truly individualised support, as each type of disability is characterised by different barriers towards labour market integration. Finally, a thought should be spared for the red and orange slices in Figure 17. To the extent that the inactive NEET rate does fluctuate during an economic recession (see Section 2.1), the re-entrants (awaiting recall to work) and discouraged young people (believing that no work is available) are particularly likely to increase as sub-groups. Their inactivity has fewer inherent barriers as experienced by young people with caring responsibilities or disabilities, and could easily be supported by Youth Guarantee providers with counselling, guidance and mentoring if such providers manage to reach out to them successfully.

2.4.Acknowledging the changes to the world of work and skills The Youth Guarantee’s success story is that, as a powerful driver for structural reforms and innovation, it has offered over 24 million young people employment, continued education, apprenticeships and traineeships. However, the world of work and skills has changed since the aftermath of the global 2008 financial crisis. Now facing a new economic recession, young people’s precarious transition into the labour market cannot afford ignoring challenges such as: (1) an increasing prevalence of non-standard forms of work; (2) less stable employment and more frequent job-to-job transitions; and (3) an increasingly precarious school-to-work transition and growing path dependence. While full-time, salaried employment with a permanent contract had become the norm in the 20th century, the majority (almost 60%) of all employment growth in OECD countries since the 1990s has been in the form of non-standard work. As a result, some 40% of the European workforce is today engaged in non-standard forms of work. Findings below illustrate how young people in particular are facing less stable employment situations and more frequent job-to-job transitions than older individuals. Table 1. Estimated probabilities of young people’s transitions in labour market status in the EU27 (2018-19). Employment in 2018 Inactivity in 2018 Unemployment in 2018 Employment in 2019 Low education 86% 11% 33% Medium education 91% 15% 40% High education 93% 22% 49% Inactivity in 2019 Low education 8% 83% 28% Medium education 6% 81% 24% High education 5% 73% 18% Unemployment in 2019 Low education 6% 6% 40% Medium education 3% 5% 36% High education 2% 5% 33% Source: Eurostat estimates based on the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS). Note: Individuals aged 15 to 29. Low education equals ISCED 0-2; medium education equals ISCED 3-4; high education equals ISCED 5-8. Firstly, Table 1 summarises the flows between employment, inactivity and unemployment for young people aged 15 to 29, broken down by level of education attainment. For instance, of all low educated 15 to 29 year-olds who were employed in 2018, 86% were employed in 2019. Across the EU, higher levels of education attainment increase the likelihood of remaining in employment or becoming employed from an inactive or unemployed status. Higher levels of education attainment also decrease the chances of falling into inactivity or unemployment or remaining in these disadvantageous positions. An employed labour market status is less stable for young people, no matter their level of education attainment, than it is for the population aged 30 to 74. In other words, even highly educated young people are less likely to remain employed, and more likely to fall from employed into inactivity or unemployment, than the average 30 to 74 year-old across the EU. Secondly, Figure 18 visualises job-to-job transitions between 2018 and 2019, which are on average almost three times more prevalent among 15 to 29 year-olds than among 30 to 74 year-olds, even though Figure 18 excludes individuals who are simultaneously in education or training. While some fluctuations can be expected in the early years of one’s professional career, the gravity of the situation hints at a precarious school-to-work transition, which is only expected to become more volatile in the new economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Figure 18. Estimated probabilities of job-to-job transitions by age group (2018-19). Source: Eurostat estimates based on the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS). Note: countries are in descending order according to the share of job-to-job transitions among 15 to 29 year-olds. Estimates are based on the sample of persons who are employed in both years, have not been in education or training in either year, and have changed their job determined by contract lengths at least once in the period between the interviews. Finally, part of the reason young people are more likely to fall out of employment and experience more frequent job-to-job transitions than the adult population is that they often have temporary contracts (Figure 19). Across the EU on average, 27.0% of 15 to 29 year-old employees have temporary contracts, versus 9.8% among all employees on average. More than 40% of young employees have temporary contracts in Spain, Portugal and Italy. It is worth noting that, again, Figure 19 excludes individuals in education or training.

Figure 19. Temporary employees by age group, as a share of all employees (2019). Source: Eurostat estimates based on the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS). Note: countries are in descending order according to the share of temporary employees among all employees. The indicator excludes individuals in education or training. Digitalisation and the need to secure at least basic levels of digital skills Another major aspect of the changing nature of work is the effect of new technologies and digital transitions. Across the EU, the digital revolution is causing significant changes and has become a key factor running through EU policies. Some jobs are at risk of being lost to algorithms. Others are being transformed and new ones are being created. As a result, the skills young people need are also changing, and new forms of employment, such as platform work, are on the rise (Box 2). Box 2. Platform work. According to Eurofound, platform work is a form of employment intermediated by digital platforms. These enable organisations and/or individuals to provide services to other organisations and/or individuals. The services may be provided online (e.g. editing, translation, graphic design, software development services) or in person (e.g. ride-hailing, food-delivery, plumbing and other household services). These two broad categories of platforms determine the main distinction within platform work, between “online” and “on-location” platform work and workers. The role of platforms in allocating labour is determined by their technological know-how. Algorithms allow for optimally matching online demand and supply for any given service, a process dubbed “algorithmic management”. This AI-led process is in many cases extended to other aspects of the service administration, including workers’ rankings vis-à-vis potential clients, allocation of tasks and modalities of performance. Platforms vary substantially in the control exerted over demand and supply by their algorithms. This has determined the outcome of a number of court rulings on the labour status of platforms, as mere intermediaries or fully-fledged employers. Despite the recent rise in both platforms and active users, as of 2018 only 1.4% of the EU’s working-age population offered services on platforms as a main occupation. Several surveys have found the typical platform worker to be a young, educated male living and working in an urban area. For many (numbers vary drastically between countries) it remains a side-gig done to top-up incomes deriving from other full-time or part-time jobs. While platform work offers many new job opportunities, it also creates policy challenges. These include unclear employment status, precarious working conditions, poor access to social protection, skills development and career progression. The nature of platform work has raised concerns on many cross-border issues (including jurisdiction applicability for labour law). It also makes it difficult for workers to communicate and organise for social dialogue purposes.

Yet the digital skills shortage remains significant. According to the most recent data from the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), 44% of the EU population lacks even a very basic level of digital skills. This share is considerably lower among the younger age cohorts. Still, more than one in five 16 to 29 year-olds fails to reach a basic level of digital skills across the EU. This figure is around 1 in 2 for Romania and Bulgaria. On average across the EU, 16 to 29 year-olds with low formal education are 3.5 times likelier to underachieve in digital skills than their higher educated counterparts (Figure 20). The difference between the low and high educated is particularly striking in Bulgaria (44 percentage points), Hungary (36 percentage points), Malta (36 percentage points), Italy (35 percentage points), Belgium (32 percentage points) and Luxembourg (30 percentage points). While this particular indicator of basic digital skills shows a very diverse variation between young men and women across Member States, there is evidence that young women are consistently less likely to report confidence in their digital skills, and less likely to take up studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Figure 20. Share of individuals aged 16 to 29 lacking basic digital skills, by level of education attainment (2019). Source: Eurostat (online data code isoc_sk_dskl_i). Note: Individuals aged 16 to 29. Countries are ordered according to the total average share of individuals aged 16 to 29 lacking basic digital skills. Data are unavailable for Croatia (low education) and unreliable for Czechia (all), Malta (low education, high education) and Sweden (all). Data for Slovakia are from 2017. In an increasingly volatile, digital world, it is clear that digital literacy has to be a foundation for everyone, not least the young people who strive for rewarding careers on tomorrow’s labour market. There is an opportunity to come out of the new economic recession with more resilience, ingraining the transition to an inclusive digital economy into the DNA of a reinforced Youth Guarantee. Indeed, assessing young people’s basic digital skills, supporting them with additional courses where necessary, and making sure learning outcomes are recognised and validated is a key component of the proposal (see Section 4.3.3). 3.Lessons from the Youth Guarantee 2013-20 In order to strengthen the Youth Guarantee and make it fit for the 2020 economic recession, it is important to take lessons from its implementation during the aftermath of the 2008 economic recession. This chapter looks at the most prominent instances of monitoring and evaluation in recent years, coming from a wide array of EU level sources. It also provides a synthesis of the targeted consultations of stakeholders, which were conducted in early 2020. The pattern that emerges from all this feedback underpins a reinforced Youth Guarantee laid out in Chapter 4. 3.1.Monitoring and evaluation As a follow-up to the recommendations on monitoring addressed to the Commission in the 2013 Council Recommendation , the Commission reported in 2016 on the implementation of the Youth Guarantee in its Communication "The Youth Guarantee and Youth Employment Initiative three years on". The Communication was supported by two comprehensive Commission Staff Working Documents. This elaborate package of progress reports showed that the Youth Guarantee had become a reality across the EU, supported by the mobilisation of the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) and European Social Fund (ESF), and had led to encouraging results. The main 2016 Staff Working Document reviewed steps taken by Member States and the EU to implement the Youth Guarantee. It was supported by a wealth of references to studies and reports and built on a range of evidence and inputs. These included, within the framework of the European Semester (Section 3.1.1), the results of the Employment Committee (EMCO) multilateral surveillance (Section 3.1.2), underpinned by the quantitative monitoring results under the EMCO Indicator Framework (see Box 3).

Box 3. Indicator Framework for Monitoring the Youth Guarantee To support monitoring at EU level, and in line with the relevant monitoring provisions in the 2013 Council Recommendation on establishing a Youth Guarantee, an Indicator Framework for monitoring the Youth Guarantee (and an accompanying methodological manual ) was developed by the Employment Committee (with support from the Commission), and endorsed in May 2015. Macroeconomic indicators based on data from the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS) are used to monitor the general situation of young people in the labour market and therefore, indirectly, the impact of the Youth Guarantee and other measures that prevent young people from becoming NEET. Implementation and follow-up (long-term outcome) indicators are derived from administrative data provided annually by Member States. They are based on data on the number of young people that have registered in Youth Guarantee schemes (how long they stay registered, where they go when they leave the registry and where they are some time after leaving). Implementation indicators measure the direct impact of Youth Guarantee delivery while follow-up indicators are used to gauge the sustainability of labour market integration after provision of a Youth Guarantee offer. Since then, and in line with the relevant provisions in the Council Recommendation, this comprehensive monitoring framework at EU level has continued capturing the implementation of the Youth Guarantee, keeping the issue high on the political agenda and fostering the continuous improvement of national Youth Guarantee schemes. It has even inspired policy debates in other parts of the world (Box 4). This section gathers evidence at EU level from relevant implementation, evaluation and monitoring reports since 2016. All this information and evidence is used to inform the four phases of a reinforced Youth Guarantee (Chapter 4). Box 4. The Youth Guarantee in the world. Although the Youth Guarantee is a recommendation at EU level, it is inspiring also other parts of the world. This is partly fuelled by target 8.6 of the Sustainable Development Goals, which aims to, “[b]y 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training”. North Macedonia was the first non-EU country that introduced an adjusted form of Youth Guarantee. Its implementation has been included as a high priority in the Government Plan (2017-2020). Of other EU Candidate Countries, Albania plans to conduct a feasibility study in 2020 for a Youth Guarantee in the country. Judging from interest demonstrated at the Eastern Partnership Regional Conference “Supporting Youth Transitions to Work”, organised in Kyiv, Ukraine in November 2019, other Candidate and Eastern Partnership countries are likely to follow soon. Adapted forms of the Youth Guarantee are already envisaged under the New Deal for Youth, proposed by the EU for the post-2020 Eastern Partnership.

Canada looked at the Youth Guarantee as an inspirational model for their Youth Employment Strategy in the framework of the EU-Canada Bilateral Dialogue, launched in 2017. South Africa, suffering from severe youth unemployment, has been taking inspiration from the Youth Guarantee, as part of the EU-South Africa Joint Cooperation Council, as well as through a dedicated study visit. After a request from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a youth employment seminar on GCC and EU policies for supporting youth employment was organised in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in January 2019. In addition, the G20 Saudi Presidency in 2020 selected “better preparing youth for the transition to work” as one of the priority issues for the Employment Working Group. The first meetings raised high interest in the Youth Guarantee as a best practice. 3.1.1.The European Semester The European Semester provides a framework for the coordination of economic policies across the European Union. It allows EU countries to discuss their economic and budget plans and monitor progress at specific times throughout the year. The process has been central to the monitoring of the implementation of the Youth Guarantee. Progress is assessed annually in the Commission’s Country Reports and through biennial multilateral surveillance reviews of the Employment Committee (EMCO). First, however, priorities are set in the Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy, backed up by a Joint Employment Report. The Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy The Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy (which was titled Annual Growth Survey until 2020) kicks off each European Semester cycle, setting out the general economic priorities for the EU and offering EU governments policy guidance for the following year. Since 2013, the report systematically refers to the need to implement the Youth Guarantee effectively. Box 5 summarises the key takeaways of the four most recent reports in the context of young people’s employability and transition from school to work. Box 5. Key takeaways from the Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy/Annual Growth Survey 2017-2020. The Annual Growth Survey 2017 called on the Member States to pursue the rollout of the Youth Guarantee and enhance its effectiveness in order to reach out to those young people and regions most in need. It highlighted that modernising vocational education and training, including by promoting flexible learning pathways, should be high on the agenda to help in particular young people to develop the appropriate transferable skills throughout their lives. The Annual Growth Survey 2018 acknowledged that the employment of younger workers had stagnated over the previous decade and that intergenerational fairness was becoming a real concern. Without further action, it warned, there may be a detrimental impact on output growth, competitiveness, the sustainability of welfare systems, future generations' pension entitlements, their access to healthcare and their future welfare.

The Annual Growth Survey 2019 also saw the situation of young people as especially concerning. They may face a double burden: having to pay higher contribution rates while working, and receiving lower pensions after retirement. Investment in education, training and skills is crucial to increasing productivity and sustaining employment in the context of rapid change and digitisation, so Member States should equip young people with skills that are relevant to labour market needs, while enabling and encouraging lifelong learning. The Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy 2020 underlines that promoting fairness requires investment in skills, with comprehensive skills strategies focused on the individual needs for up- and re-skilling. Early leaving from education and training should be reduced, the quality and attractiveness of vocational education and training should be increased and the digital skills gap should be addressed. The Joint Employment Report The Joint Employment Report, produced annually and published alongside the Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy, takes a snapshot of the employment and social situation across the EU and highlights the extent of reforms carried out in the Member States over the previous year. Key takeaways from the 2017-2020 reports in the context of the Youth Guarantee are summarised in Box 6. Box 6. Key takeaways from the Joint Employment Report 2017-2020. The Joint Employment Report 2017 stressed that the Youth Guarantee has been a catalyst for change. Most Member States' national Youth Guarantee schemes comprise fast-acting measures to provide tailored support to all young NEETs and medium to long-term structural reforms to improve institutional capacity, while ensuring an integrated approach to service delivery. The 2017 report acknowledged that investing in outreach activities targeting young people who are not registered with the public employment services (PES) had been a priority for many Member States. It also reported on the use of targeted wage and recruitment subsidies in most Member States, many of them with support from EU funding (ESF and YEI), and on actions to improve the quality, supply, or attractiveness of apprenticeships in nearly all Member States. However, the report emphasised that Member States needed to continue structural reforms and scale up measures to ensure that all young people — especially low skilled young people and those facing multiple barriers to entering the labour market — benefit from the Youth Guarantee. The Joint Employment Report 2018 underlined the contribution of structural reforms supported by the Youth Guarantee to the improved labour market situation of young people. Among the challenges identified were the need to reach out to young people, encouraging them to register with PES, and better supporting young people facing multiple barriers. Looking at Member States’ practices, the report identified smooth coordination among employment, education and youth policies as essential to better support young people’s transition from education and unemployment to work. It also acknowledged that Member States were investing in re-skilling and up-skilling young people to enhance their employability. The report stated that a large number of Member States were supporting labour market demand for young people through wage and recruitment subsidies (often funded with EU support from the ESF and YEI), and found that such schemes were usually targeted at young people further from the labour market (e.g. long-term unemployed, low qualified or without any work experience) to avoid deadweight and substitution effects. Finally, the report considered that traineeship reforms enacted by some Member States had helped better prepare young people for labour market needs and build relevant skills, but had also helped strengthen business community engagement. The Joint Employment Report 2019 emphasised that actions taken by Member States in line with the Youth Guarantee are key drivers for improvement of the labour market situation of young people and recalled the importance of ensuring access to quality and inclusive education and training. The report found that reform efforts and new measures continued to focus on the same challenges, namely: outreach, making services more accessible to young people and ensuring a better identification of those in need, better supporting young people facing multiple disadvantages (including through better cooperation between employment, social and education services), supporting labour market demand through employment and entrepreneurship incentives (mainly in the form of targeted wage and recruitment subsidies) and upskilling and re-skilling young people through active labour market policies. The Joint Employment Report 2020 acknowledged that further reducing youth unemployment and supporting young people’s transition from education and training to the labour market remained important priorities. The report stressed that, in a context where young people’s labour market performance had significantly improved, policy measures underpinning the Youth Guarantee’s delivery were becoming more targeted. It found that Member States were stepping up their outreach efforts, making services more accessible to young people and ensuring a better identification of those in need. Also, new measures were introduced to better support young people facing multiple disadvantages.

The Joint Employment Report also monitors Member States' performance in relation to the Social Scoreboard set up in the context of the European Pillar of Social Rights . Table 2 summarises the last overview Member States’ performance vis-à-vis the Social Scoreboard’s headline indicator on young NEETs before the COVID-19 crisis and the ensuing economic downturn. Table 2. Member State performance in relation to the Social Scoreboard’s headline indicator on NEETs. Best performers Czechia, Germany, Luxembourg Better than average Denmark, Latvia, Malta, Sweden, Slovakia On average Belgium, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal Good but deteriorating Austria, Netherlands, Slovenia Weak but improving Cyprus, Croatia To watch Estonia, Spain Critical situations Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania Source: Joint Employment Report 2020 . Note: this headline indicator concerns young people aged 15 to 24. Country Reports and Country-Specific Recommendations The Commission has assessed the implementation of the Youth Guarantee in the European Semester's Country Reports since 2014. From 2017 until the pre-COVID-19 reality of early 2020, the Country Reports’ analysis relevant to the implementation of the Youth Guarantee found that, firstly, reaching out and activating the most vulnerable young people (in particular young people with disabilities, those with a migrant background and in those with low skills) remains a challenge in many Member States. Secondly, the 2017-2020 Country Reports stressed that regional disparities in labour market opportunities for young people are significant and persistent in some Member States, often correlating with regional disparities in education attainment, early leaving from education and training, or the quality and availability of integrated services for the inactive and unemployed. Education attainment was confirmed as a major factor in determining employment prospects for young people. In a number of countries, high rates of early leaving from education and training and lack of basic skills among disadvantaged young people were barriers to employability. More recently, young people’s lack of digital skills was seen as an additional obstacle to employment. In some countries, the labour market relevance of vocational education and training remained insufficient and efforts to increase its attractiveness were met with limited success. The analytical basis of the Country Reports forms the basis for the European Semester’s Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs) on youth unemployment and inactivity. CSRs on improving school-to-work transitions increased markedly in 2014, when a majority of Member States received a youth-specific CSR. These recommendations were mostly formulated in the context of particular reform efforts, applicable to public employment services (PES), education and training systems, active labour market policies or other labour market challenges. A particular focus of the 2015 and 2016 CSRs was the need for outreach to those young NEETs that are not registered with a PES. In 2017, Belgium, Slovakia and Romania received CSRs that specifically mentioned disadvantaged groups, with a clear identification of young people in the recitals. In 2018, Cyprus received a CSR recommending “reinforc[ing] outreach and activation support for young people who are not in employment, education or training”. CSRs for Belgium and Slovakia again mentioned disadvantaged groups and identified young people in the recitals. In 2019, Cyprus received a CSR recommending “complet[ing] reforms aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the public employment services and reinforc[ing] outreach and activation support for young people”. Another CSR recommended Italy to “ensure that active labour market and social policies are effectively integrated and reach out notably to young people and vulnerable groups”. From a broader perspective, in 2017-2019, many CSRs referred to policies that affect the situation of young people on the labour market. Such CSRs related, for instance, to education achievements of disadvantaged young people, labour market segmentation, provision of quality education, quality of vocational education and training (VET), dual VET and apprenticeships, quality and provision of active labour market policy measures or PES capacity. 3.1.2.Multilateral surveillance by the Employment Committee

The Employment Performance Monitor The Employment Committee (EMCO) was mandated to produce an Employment Performance Monitor, which could be used to identify at a glance the main employment challenges for the EU and each Member State. The Employment Performance Monitor is based on the findings of the Joint Assessment Framework (JAF). A specific Youth Guarantee module has also been developed. The 2019 Employment Performance Monitor identified "high and/or increasing incidence of youth unemployment and/or NEETs" as a "key employment challenge" in eight Member States: Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Hungary and Romania. The thematic reviews on youth employment Responding to a call in the 2013 Council Recommendation , the EMCO thematic reviews on youth employment are one of the major tools of multilateral surveillance on Youth Guarantee implementation and feed into EMCO's work on assessing the draft Country-Specific Recommendations proposed by the Commission. Since 2016, when the Commission previously reported on the implementation of the Youth Guarantee thus far, EMCO has carried out two thematic reviews, assessing Member States' progress on Youth Guarantee implementation and progress on CSRs related to youth employment. Both sets of EMCO findings were subsequently endorsed by the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO) Council. Horizontal conclusions from the 2017 review of Youth Guarantee implementation This review documented the progress in Youth Guarantee implementation, with measures underpinning the Youth Guarantee's delivery now maturing. In a changing labour market context, the review also highlighted a shift in approach in several Member States, with a stronger focus on upskilling and on young people facing multiple disadvantages. Yet in some Member States, Youth Guarantee delivery was found to be based primarily on individual projects and measures, rather than on an overarching strategy. Most Member States had developed new forms of partnerships, though the approach differed between Member States. Some placed the emphasis at local level while in others it was more centrally coordinated. Member States highlighted the need for effective cooperation between public employment services (PES) and the education system as well as youth and other services. Such cooperation was stressed to be crucial particularly in increasing the provision of continued education and apprenticeship offers, and in better supporting young people in the most vulnerable situations. Outreach to NEETs was still deemed a challenge in many Member States. Additional efforts were needed in many Member States to upscale existing outreach measures. A number of Member States were now focusing outreach efforts on reaching young people who are furthest away from the labour market and who, across the board, tended not to be reached by the Youth Guarantee. Several Member States faced challenges related to the provision of an offer within four months. This was the case not only of those with limited PES capacity but also those with a high share of hardest-to-reach NEETs, who often need more complex interventions before being able to take up an offer. Monitoring data on outcomes, although still incomplete, showed encouraging results: close to half of the young people were still in employment, education or training six months after leaving the Youth Guarantee. However, important differences remained across Member States. Work on the quality and relevance of the Youth Guarantee offers needed to be continued, inter alia by ensuring that offers were adapted to changing labour markets and better targeted to the specific profile of the young people, while helping them gain the right skills and leading to sustainable outcomes. Finally, despite the progress achieved, important challenges remained in improving the completion of data, particularly in relation to the destination of all young people when leaving the Youth Guarantee, and in relation to follow-up data. Follow-up data to monitor the situation of participants after exiting the Youth Guarantee preparatory phase was not yet available in a number of countries. Member States were strongly encouraged to make additional efforts to improve the completion of data, so as to improve their capacity to monitor the destination of all young people leaving the Youth Guarantee and to follow-up participants after exit from the Youth Guarantee, particularly, where possible, through the use of linked registers.

Horizontal conclusions from the 2019 review of Youth Guarantee implementation According to this review, along with the improvements to the macroeconomic outlook, the labour market situation of young people was deemed to be improving, enabling Member States to focus more on addressing labour market needs and vulnerable youth. Still, the proportion of the NEET population or of certain sub-groups (such as the inactive or youth facing multiple barriers) reached by the Youth Guarantee remained relatively low in some Member States. The implementation of the Youth Guarantee also varied between regions within Member States. Member States had taken steps to strengthen the Youth Guarantee offers by providing individualised paths and focusing more on early intervention in some cases. Efforts had been made to encourage young people to begin or return to education or training, as well as to offer them appropriate career guidance and more opportunities to engage in work-based learning and acquire work experience. Support for more preventative approaches to reduce early leaving from education and training was suggested to be considered in future development of Youth Guarantee schemes. Several Member States had developed promising approaches for the identification of and outreach to young NEETs, by making use of innovative communication and outreach tools. Information and communication technologies allowed for the linking of different databases, so as to facilitate the tracking of NEETs and map their needs and use of services. However, for many Member States, finding suitable solutions to respect data protection rules remained an obstacle. The cooperation between public authorities in charge of implementing the Youth Guarantee and service providers, as well as between various levels of governance, could be further improved in some cases. The use of integrated or coordinated service delivery, e.g. in the form of one-stop-shop approaches, had increased, but there was room for further improvements in coordinating employment, education and social services to support vulnerable young people in particular. Individual action plans were provided and regularly updated in some Member States. Some Member States also performed assessments of labour market needs. Further improvement was needed in the effectiveness of PES by ensuring adequate staffing levels and enhancing their capacity to offer personalised and individualised counselling and action planning according to the various jobseeker profiles. Most Member States were tackling the quality of offers within the Youth Guarantee framework. Some countries considered offers that lead to employment as being of good quality; others were putting a greater emphasis on ensuring good quality apprenticeships and traineeships, preventing early leaving from education and training and encouraging continued education. Some Member States defined good quality job offers as offers that last for at least six months. Finally, countries still needed to step up their efforts to improve their capacity to monitor the destination of young people leaving the Youth Guarantee and to follow-up participants after exit from the Youth Guarantee in order to better assess impact. Some Member States were setting up monitoring systems that link different administrative data while in other countries data protection issues still needed to be addressed. 3.1.3.The role of EU funding support The implementation of the Youth Guarantee in the Member States is financially supported by the EU primarily through the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) and the European Social Fund (ESF). In the 2014-2020 programming period (with the YEI already commencing September 2013) these funding sources are jointly investing around EUR 15 billion directly in measures to support youth employment. Yet, as Box 7 illustrates, it is clear that given the estimated costs of integrating young NEETs, and the vulnerable groups among them, into employment and education, this EU budgetary effort has to be complemented by even greater national investments. Ultimately, this can help prevent the significant costs of inaction.

Box 7. The costs of a Youth Guarantee. The challenges brought about by the COVID-19 induced economic downturn – on top of the EU’s twin transitions to a sustainable and digital economy – highlight the importance of labour productivity growth. Due to demographic changes it will remain difficult to rely on adding more people to the labour force as a potential source of growth. However, in the medium term, engaging more people actively in the labour market can make an important difference. To achieve higher productivity, policies need to shift towards innovation and expanding the EU knowledge base through skills and education. Consequently, unemployment, inactivity and lost productivity among young people have a high cost and necessitate targeted policy efforts. Experiencing unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, at the beginning of one's career can have negative long-term consequences in terms of future earnings and employment prospects (the so-called scarring effect). It may also lead to lower productivity levels overall. The recent evaluation of the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) shows that there are great variations in costs between the Member States. Averaged figures show that the cost of young people’s sustainable integration into the labour market is an estimated EUR 4,157. Considering that there were approximately 9.4 million 15 to 29 year-olds not in education, training or employment (NEET) across the EU on average in 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, this would suggest a total cost of EUR 38.9 billion to lift all out of unemployment or inactivity. Assuming a similar increase in the NEET rate as seen during the previous economic recession, the cost would go up to EUR 49.6 billion. However, inaction could be much more costly. In 2014, NEETs were estimated to cost the EU EUR 162 billion (1.21% of GDP) a year – in benefits and foregone earnings and taxes . According to another estimate , the lost GDP due to youth unemployment in the EU in 2016 was no less than EUR 279 billion. Moreover, potential costs need to be measured also in terms of increased risks of intergenerational transmission of poverty, thus contributing to the further entrenchment of disadvantages. The Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) focuses exclusively on supporting young NEETs in the EU regions with the highest unemployment rates. Under the 2014-2020 EU budgetary framework, the YEI (around EUR 9 billion) will have provided much needed support to the implementation of the Youth Guarantee, directly targeting young NEETs by financing the provision of traineeships, apprenticeships, job placements and further education across eligible Member States. The European Social Fund (close to EUR 6 billion dedicated directly to youth employment), in turn, supports broader reforms necessary for the Youth Guarantee to be delivered effectively, including reforms of vocational education and training systems and of public employment services (PES). The ESF support can extend to reforming policies, services and institutions as well as to preventative actions, such as for young people at risk of early leaving from education and training or social exclusion. The YEI support is targeted to specific EU regions facing high youth unemployment and it only covers NEETs residing in those regions. By the end of 2018, 2.7 million young people had been included in YEI-supported measures. Of those, over 0.9 million were in education or training, had gained a qualification or were in employment, including self-employment following the YEI-supported measure. The Commission’s proposal for the future ESF (the ESF+) maintains a focus on youth employment (see Section 4.5.3). The Commission is currently finalising an evaluation on the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence, EU value added and sustainability of the youth employment focused operations supported by the ESF and YEI (2014-2020). The evaluation has produced a number of key takeaways. It showcases in particular how the available ESF and YEI funding helped foster policy progress with the implementation of the Youth Guarantee. At the same time, challenges remain, for instance with regards to identifying the target group and developing outreach policies. Preliminary evidence from the case studies analysed as part of the evaluation illustrates the value gained from working in partnerships and, conversely, the missed opportunities when cooperation and partnerships are not strong – especially with respect to outreach work. The importance of partnerships is, more generally, highlighted as one of the key contributions to effective EU funded programmes. Here, the alignment of ESF/YEI with national and other youth employment policies and programmes is critical.

Furthermore, the preliminary conclusions of the evaluation confirm that individuals furthest away from the labour market require tailored and intensive guidance and support and that this has been addressed in the measures supported by the operational programmes. Indeed, getting the most disadvantaged NEETs into employment is challenging, but there are good practice examples of EU funded approaches in a number of Member States. As regards the most attractive and effective measures supported, work experience has proven to be a vital route into employment and helps to develop relevant skills, with many ESF/YEI operations focusing on work experience to give this opportunity to young people who would otherwise have found it very hard to find a placement or traineeship. The study also finds that, although it only accounts for a small amount (3-7%) of ESF/YEI youth employment resources, support to entrepreneurship has one of the highest employment results. The evaluation concludes that the YEI and the ESF have helped improve the employability of young people across the EU. Between 2014 and 2018 about 3.8 million young people participated in YEI and ESF youth employment operations. Some 3,300 projects and 14,600 SMEs have been supported. There were 1.4 million immediate results (offers of employment, continued education, apprenticeships and traineeships), with improved results over time, six months or more after participation. Overall, EU support has helped reduce NEET numbers, especially in those countries with more dependency on EU funds for active labour market measures, and has helped to support and develop delivery and management systems. Finally, YEI and ESF youth employment operations have become a driver for significant policy innovation, especially with regard to outreach for harder to reach groups. Challenged by the complex characteristics of the NEET target group, YEI and ESF-supported operations have spurred the elaboration of a range of approaches to identify and contact young people who are hardest to reach. Examples include working with schools (to identify those at risk of becoming NEETs), an innovative use of social media, and collaborative work with supporting social services (e.g. health, housing) and youth or community organisations. With the COVID-19 crisis and its significant negative impact on employment, special attention will have to be kept on young NEETs, both in the context of immediate crisis response and more comprehensive, medium term recovery plans. The ESF 2014-2020 has already been mobilised, following the EU Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative (CRII) and the CRII+ , to provide immediate support to tackling the impact of the crisis on labour markets and in particular to help maintain employment and reduce job losses. Following the Commission’s proposal for a Recovery Plan for Europe and Next Generation EU, massive scale investments will be added to the current cohesion policy envelopes, with a view to providing fresh resources for Member States’ economies and labour markets. The REACT-EU instrument, available already in 2020, will boost available resources in the current ESF and ERDF programmes and target specifically anti-crisis measures to support employment, social inclusion measures and business investments. Support to youth employment, including for self-employed young people, will be among the key areas where important ESF investments should be directed in order to avoid a new surge of youth unemployment, while paying special attention to vulnerable groups. Support to hiring subsidies and social contributions are among the most urgent measures that Member States can mobilise. On top of this, the Recovery and Resilience Facility can play a key role in supporting the reforms put forward by a reinforced Youth Guarantee, beyond crisis compensatory measures. The national recovery and resilience plans – which are planned as the basis for allocating a proposed EUR 560 billion of grants and loans – should pay sufficient attention to reforms supporting youth employment, so as to ensure a sustainable pathway for the employment and social integration of young people. The ESF+ (2021-27) will continue these efforts (see section 4.5.3.) 3.1.4.European Parliament reports The 2018 European Parliament Resolution on the implementation of the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) stresses the absolute necessity for further efforts, including continued political and financial commitments, to tackle youth unemployment. It considers both the YEI and the Youth Guarantee essential in the effective delivery of the key principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights. As for the Youth Guarantee, various calls are made on the Member States to step up, in particular, the outreach to vulnerable groups and the quality of the o