EU unemployment is a problem. | 70 comments (70 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: EU unemployment is a problem. (none / 0)

I'd like to flag this (p. 12)

Targeted measures that provide pre-labor market opportunities for European youth would appear to help on the suppy-side (and may already be doing so). Such opportunities would enable young people to time their entry into paid employment so as to escape being tarred as either relatively unproductive, or as having started working life with a long stretch of unemployment. It may perhaps be noted that the United States does this very effectively, with hight levels of university enrollment, military enlistment — and unfortunately also incarceration — all targeted to keeping youth off the streets. As a result, youth unemployment is not (except for certain relatively small populations) nearly as serious a social problem as it is in Europe.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Mar 29th, 2006 at 04:58:26 AM EST
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Re: EU unemployment is a problem. (4.00 / 2)

I'm dubitative about that. How are college/military/prison (in the example of the US) to be considered as "pre-labor market opportunities"?

On that score, France (high student enrolment) would be doing better than the US (yet it has been suggested here that this may just be a way of masking youth unemployment).

OTOH, "pre-labor market opportunities" might be sought in two types of government intervention:

creation of public-sector jobs for first-job seekers, giving them activity, an income, and experience over a sufficient length of time for it to count (the French programme, under the previous left government, gave these jobs a five-year duration);
funding "alternating" systems of work and study to obtain professional qualifications. Particularly if the student is hired by a company that will receive payment to cover the loss of work during training periods/ or to cover training administered within the company by competent people. There is a French system of this kind that works quite well (though I haven't heard much about it since the right got back in in 2002...)

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Mar 29th, 2006 at 06:48:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]

EU unemployment is a problem. | 70 comments (70 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)