Job Generation: What can your City do to Grow Jobs for Young People?

Europe is facing a huge youth employment challenge. A recovery seems to be in progress, but it is an uneven one. What can your city do - the city practitioners, elected officials and key stakeholders - to grow jobs for young people? This is the central question to be explored in this article, drawing on the initial findings of URBACT's 'Job Generation' workstream. In particular it focuses on what cities can do - starting from today - to better understand the problem and to better engage employers and young people in this critical debate.

What’s the Problem?

70% of Europe's young people live in cities. For far too many of these young people their lives are blighted by not having a decent job, or not having a job at all.

Some numbers

5.6 million young people, aged 15-24¹, in the 28 countries of the European Union are unemployed. That is nearly 1 in 4 (23%) of all economically active young people and two and a half times the adult unemployment rate.

7.5 million young people are not in education, training or employment (the so called NEETs), more than 1 in 8 (13%) of all young people.

Many of those who are in a job could do with a better job. The European Youth Forum has found that 42% of all young people in work are on temporary contracts. Many are underemployed (they want to work more hours than they actually do) or their skills are underutilised because they are overqualified for the work they are doing.

A ‘lost generation’? Millions of lives are potentially scarred by lack of opportunity, lack of income and lack of worth, disconnected from the benefits of living in a prosperous part of the world, risking economic and social exclusion throughout life. This is a waste of talent for the economy and a cost for society in terms of public services and spending. Eurofound have estimated that the economic loss alone associated with this waste of young people amounts to €153bn, a sum equivalent to 1.2% of the EUs total GDP.

So, 'job generation' makes economic and social sense as well as being beneficial for young people themselves. Cities can turn these costs of young people’s joblessness into benefits by helping to power growth throughout the European Union. More jobs and better jobs for young people means more growth and prosperity. This is surely a prize worth winning.

Job Generation - the missing piece of the jigsaw

The question is, how can cities grow jobs for young people? What can you, a city practitioner or an elected official do - starting today?

Much action in cities throughout Europe is devoted to measures to help unemployed young people access the jobs that do exist, moving them from welfare to work largely through ‘supply side’ measures to increase their employability or increase the incentive to work by reducing welfare benefits or making them conditional (so called ‘active labour market policy’). Focus on the supply side does of course have a place but programmes like the Youth Guarantee will stall or fail without more employment or self-employment opportunities. The truth is that there are not enough jobs to go round. Young people cannot all get jobs, decent jobs, sustainable jobs. What is fundamentally required is more and better jobs for them to do. This ‘demand’ side perspective is the focus of our URBACT capitalisation workstream: JOB GENERATION for a Jobless Generation. It is the availability of jobs, how well they match the skills that young people possess, as well as the behaviour of both employers and young people, when the former are recruiting and the latter are searching for work, which ultimately determines how many and which young people are employed. It is the key to success.

The European Council agreed to establish a Youth Guarantee in April 2013. The guarantee is to ensure that Member States offer ALL young people aged up to 25 either a quality job, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship, within four months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed. Member States are allocating significant national resources to these schemes and the EU will top-up national spending through the European Social Fund and the €6bn Youth Employment Initiative.

The European Council agreed to establish a Youth Guarantee in April 2013. The guarantee is to ensure that Member States offer ALL young people aged up to 25 either a quality job, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship, within four months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed. Member States are allocating significant national resources to these schemes and the EU will top-up national spending through the European Social Fund and the €6bn Youth Employment Initiative.

There is much that cities can potentially do to generate jobs. URBACT set out some ideas on what could be done to generate more and better jobs in its 2012 report ‘More Jobs, Better Cities: A Framework for City Action on Jobs2 '. Applying the framework specifically for young people, and reviewing the European level policy and research agenda, leads us to a wide array of potential action as set out in the Job Generation State of the Art report, published over the Summer of 2014. This Framework would suggest that a series of actions could be taken on the demand for a city’s goods and services; its economic structure; and its competitiveness. Action is possible too on the quality of jobs, on young people’s mobility and on their skills, especially in relation to changing labour market demands. Sound evidence and effective governance are also important in connecting these actions together and developing a ‘whole system’ approach to youth employment.

Figure 1 - A Framework for City Action on Jobs (2012)

This is an enormous agenda and we now wish to focus on ‘what’ should be done and ‘how’ to actually do it. The workstream wants to develop practical ideas, advice and recommendations to support Europe’s cities in their quest to grow jobs for young people. Our core group of experts and practitioners (see below) reviewed our State of the Art findings and prioritised two key areas on which the rest of the work will focus, recognising where URBACT can add most value to existing knowledge:

a) Intelligence: A better understanding of the Youth employment challenge

Without a sound diagnosis, successful treatment is less likely. Intelligence, analysis and evidence are the foundation stones of success.

b) Employer engagement: Collaboration in tackling the Youth employment challenge

It is employers who create jobs. It is employers that hire (or fail to hire) young people, that recruit them to undertake specific jobs that require a skill set determined by those same employers. It is employers who pay the wages, promote the staff or terminate their contracts.

Young people themselves are also at the centre of the challenge. It is their skills, their searching, their requirements that come together with employers to decide whether they get a job (or a better job) or not.

The workstream Core Group firmly believe that much can be achieved in respect of Intelligence and Employers. Whilst flexibility and the ability to tailor action to individual city needs is important, action on intelligence and engaging local employers can often be undertaken and bring value whatever the local constraints. And in both sets of cases, if the focus is to reform existing practice rather than additional spending; if we treat the process as a journey, a series of steps that can be taken over time, or indeed as an opportunity to innovate and do things differently - rather than doing more things - then progress is indeed possible.

If you want to know more about the scope for city action, or what can cities do and how for job generation, read full article here ! This article is part of The URBACT Tribune 2014

Follow the Job Generation Workstream on Twitter @URBACT #SustRegen

By Mike Campbell and Alison Partridge

with Ana Suárez Lena, Béla Kézy and Simona Monica Pascariu

¹Statistics generally use a definition of 18-24 years old to define ' young people'. However, it is important to note that the working definition varies enormously across Europe and often extends to 30 years of age.

²Cities of Tomorrow-Action Today, URBACT II Capitalisation, More Jobs: Better Cities - A Framework for City Action on Jobs (Mike Campbell and Alison Partridge)

The URBACT Tribune 2014 – URBACT publication

URBACT Capitalisation - URBACT website

Submitted by URBACT on Thu, 25/09/2014 - 16:52

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Job Generation: What can your City do to Grow Jobs for Young People?

Edited on

What’s the Problem?

Some numbers

Job Generation - the missing piece of the jigsaw

Figure 1 - A Framework for City Action on Jobs (2012)

¹Statistics generally use a definition of 18-24 years old to define ' young people'. However, it is important to note that the working definition varies enormously across Europe and often extends to 30 years of age.

²Cities of Tomorrow-Action Today, URBACT II Capitalisation, More Jobs: Better Cities - A Framework for City Action on Jobs (Mike Campbell and Alison Partridge)

Read more:

You are here

Job Generation: What can your City do to Grow Jobs for Young People?

Edited on

What’s the Problem?

Some numbers

Job Generation - the missing piece of the jigsaw

Figure 1 - A Framework for City Action on Jobs (2012)

1Statistics generally use a definition of 18-24 years old to define ' young people'. However, it is important to note that the working definition varies enormously across Europe and often extends to 30 years of age.

2Cities of Tomorrow-Action Today, URBACT II Capitalisation, More Jobs: Better Cities - A Framework for City Action on Jobs (Mike Campbell and Alison Partridge)

Read more:

¹Statistics generally use a definition of 18-24 years old to define ' young people'. However, it is important to note that the working definition varies enormously across Europe and often extends to 30 years of age.

²Cities of Tomorrow-Action Today, URBACT II Capitalisation, More Jobs: Better Cities - A Framework for City Action on Jobs (Mike Campbell and Alison Partridge)