Implementation of the Council Recommendation of 30 October 2020 on A Bridge to Jobs – Reinforcing the Youth Guarantee and replacing the Council Recommendation of 22 April 2013 on establishing a Youth Guarantee

The European Parliament adopted by 530 votes to 77, with 61 abstentions, a resolution on the implementation of the Council Recommendation of 30 October 2020 on A Bridge to Jobs - Reinforcing the Youth Guarantee and replacing the Council Recommendation of 22 April 2013 on establishing a Youth Guarantee.

The Youth Guarantee (YG) was established in 2013 and reinforced in 2020. It is a commitment made by the Member States to young people under the age of 30 to offer them good-quality employment, continuing education, or an apprenticeship or a traineeship opportunity within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving education. Since its establishment in 2013, around 60 million young Europeans have taken up an offer under the Youth Guarantee scheme.

Trends in the implementation of the Youth Guarantee

While welcoming the strong performance of labour markets in the EU and the historically low unemployment rates, Parliament regretted, however, that this trend is not having a greater impact on young people, whose unemployment rate across the EU hovers at around 15 %.

Members welcomed the downward trend in the rate of young people not in employment, education, or training (NEETs) in the EU since the introduction of the Youth Guarantee, which has fallen from 16.1% in 2013 to 11% in 2025. However, they noted a disparity between Member States, with some having already achieved the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan target of decreasing the NEET rate to 9 % by 2030, while others still have alarmingly high numbers of NEETs.

The resolution underlined that the implementation of the Youth Guarantee schemes is hindered by persistent long-term challenges, such as outreach to and support for the hard-to-reach NEETs, the low coverage rate of these schemes, the low quality of offers, the limited capacity and coordinating role of RYG providers, in particular PES, and incomplete monitoring frameworks.

Members have observed a notable imbalance in the opportunities offered under the enhanced Youth Guarantee schemes, with employment-focused approaches being favoured over training-focused systems. Currently, not all eligible young people receive offers of quality employment, education, apprenticeships, or training within four months of leaving education or becoming unemployed.

Impact of the reinforced Youth Guarantee

Parliament recognised that the Youth Guarantee Scheme has acted as a catalyst for institutional reforms and policy innovations across the Member States and has also prompted reflection on the reorganisation of active labour market policies for young people. However, the impact of the reinforced Youth Guarantee Scheme is uneven both across and within Member States in terms of its implementation. Furthermore, it is not binding on Member States.

Members regretted that the awareness of the reinforced Youth Guarantee schemes remains low among young people, employers and, to a certain extent, public authorities, education and training providers. They are concerned about the poor horizontal and vertical coordination between EU, national, regional and local levels; persistent gaps in data sharing and inter-institutional communication; the inability to reach vulnerable and inactive groups; insufficient capacity and resources within public employment services; and the trend toward moving away from personalised services in favour of increasingly generalised ones.

Recommendations

Stressing the importance of an enabling policy framework for the implementation of the reinforced Youth Guarantee and the successful labour market integration of NEETs, Parliament called on the Commission and the Member States to:

- ensure that offers under the reinforced youth guarantee are based on (i) quality standards governing employment, working conditions, education, traineeships and apprenticeships, (ii) flexible learning and work arrangements to unlock the potential of carers, in particular young mothers, (iii) inclusion policies and appropriate skilling opportunities, and (iv) genuine access to social protection and services such as childcare and care facilities, efficient transport systems, adequate health care, and affordable and available housing for young people;

- deliver targeted improvements to strengthen the capacities of public employment services and other relevant national entities responsible, including by increasing administrative and human resources specialising in supporting youth employment;

- provide comprehensive and, where possible, individualised support to remove the structural and often complex barriers faced by vulnerable NEETs, in order to address the root causes of social exclusion and remedy their situation in the labour market;

- adopt a regional approach to the implementation of the reinforced Youth Guarantee, which provides for substantial and prioritised investments and measures in regions where NEET, youth unemployment and inactivity rates are highest and where structural disadvantages are greatest;

- include in reinforced youth guarantee schemes a series of preventive measures as well as early warning systems focused on early school leaving in order to improve the transition from school to employment;

- invest in the training of education and training providers and prioritise upskilling of teachers and vocational education and training (VET) trainers in strategic sectors, particularly digital and emerging technologies;

- take coordinated measures to address persistent gaps in functional numeracy, literacy and digital skills;

- strengthen national, regional and local awareness-raising measures targeting vulnerable NEETs.

Parliament called for the promotion of quality apprenticeships and dual education systems, such as by combining classroom learning and practical work experience, especially for vulnerable young people, to make it an appealing pathway.

Lastly, it stressed the need to bolster reinforced Youth Guarantee governance through a collaborative and community-based approach in all its phases.