Serbia has to find its own way to fight youth unemployment, but the European Union and its Member States will share their experience so to help it along the way, participants of the Workshop on Youth Employment Initiatives were told as they gathered to discuss how to combat the youth unemployement in Serbia that has already exceeded 50 percent.

The youth unemployment is a major challenge within the EU as well, forcing it to develop policy responses in the form of new programmes and mechanisms.

“Youth employment is a top concern in Serbia with reasons,” said Freek Janmaat,  Head of European Integration section at the EU Delegation to Serbia.

Youth access to employment is particularly problematic in Serbia due to indicated structural problems, he said. “An important share of young people are long-term unemployed, around 60 percent. A significant share, 25 percent of youth are not in employment, not in education, not in training, which shows a worrying detachment from the labour market,” Janmaat said.

In its Enlargement strategy 2013/2014, the European Commission introduced the Employment and social reform programme (ESRP) for Serbia, which Commissioner for employment, social affairs and inclusion László Andor has announced during last year’s visit to Serbia.

The situation needs to be addressed to avoid a “lost generation” that would mean lost human capital, which is one of the main asset of Europe and Serbia to ensure competitiveness in the long-run, Janmaat said.

“Failing to integrate the young generation in the labour market is a missed opportunity and Serbia cannot afford it,” he said.

Thomas Bender, Head of Unit of the European Commission’s DG Employment, presented EU measures to tackle youth unemployement, introducing Youth Employment Package and in particularly Youth Guarantee schemes.

The Youth Guarantee is a recommendation to EU Member States to ensure that “all young people up to age 25 receive a quality offer of a job, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of leaving formal education of becoming unemployed,” Bender said.

He also pointed out at a need to “increase supply of high quality traineeships and appreticeships” as well as to “increase labour mobility as two million vacancies accross EU are not filled.”

Serbia is currently drafting its ESRP and the workshop, organised by European Commission’s TAIEX and in co-operation with Serbian government’s Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit and the Ministry for Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs, should help to make the ESRP more concrete.

Experts from Croatia, Austria, Czech Republic and Slovenia have shared their countries’ experience in combating youth unemployement with dozens of participants from both government and non-governmental sector dealing with the issue.

Freek Janmaat’s speaking points.

Thomas Bender’s presentation.