The Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy has reviewed the
first year of the youth guarantee programme and found that the public
sector is prioritising young people more than before. Regional
employment offices have also been given more resources to help young
people to find jobs. More young people keep looking for jobs and fewer
give up.
Another important factor is that an outreach programme which has
been established nationwide, meaning more struggling young people have
been given help.
Although youth unemployment keeps rising, young people do find jobs
relatively quickly. In 2012 unemployment lasted for 12 weeks on
average, in 2014 it was 14 weeks. This is still a much shorter amount
of time than for older jobseekers.
The youth guarantee is the present government’s most important
project aimed at improving employment and education for young people
while preventing groups of people falling outside of the system. The
youth guarantee was introduced in early 2014 and the Minister of
Labour, Lauri Ihalainen, believes the programme should continue when
the next government takes office following general elections in
April.
“We should use what we have learned during this parliament to
further develop the model. I think it is obvious that the youth
guarantee is part of the next government’s programme,” Ihalainen
says.
The review concludes that the youth guarantee should be implemented
long term and that young people should be offered more personal
coaching. Youth support workers from different areas should also
coordinate their work better.
The service model aims to get everybody into jobs, apprenticeships
or education within three months. Finland’s long term youth
unemployment is the lowest in the whole of the EU.
“The youth guarantee model has worked despite the difficult
employment situation. The challenging economic situation means we have
not been able to achieve our goals for youth employment as quickly as
we wanted,” says Ihalainen.
At the same time, the current government has decided to reduce the
number of vocational training places and cut in the support for adult
education, which could impact negatively on young people’s
opportunities.
