According to statistics, as many as a quarter of young adults have been unemployed for longer than government’s three month target.
There have been more young people unemployed for more than three months in 2013 than in 2012. And the number of youths for whom joblessness has stretched to six months has been growing steadily.
The "youth guarantee" programme set out by government came online at the beginning of the year and aims to provide a job, on-the-job-training, a study place or other aid to young adults under the age of 25 and to recent graduates under the age of 30 – all within three months of becoming unemployed.
However the latest data show that as of July, more than 27 percent of applicants for the support scheme have been out of the job market for more than three months. At the same time last year, when no special programmes had been put in place to address the problem, 20 percent of young adults had been jobless for more than three months.
Officials blame the numbers on the general bleakness of the job market and the weak economic situation.
“As a matter of fact youth unemployment has grown at the same rate as joblessness among other groups, compared to last year. In other words the job market situation has been so challenging and our government programs have not borne fruit as well as we would have hoped,” explained Teija Felt, job market adviser of the Ministry of Employment and Economic Affairs.
Education initiatives also stalling
An important factor of the youth guarantee is also a guarantee of education and training, and looks to provide further training for youths who’ve only completed their basic education. This aspect of the programme is yet to get off the ground.
More than 8 percent high school graduates failed to secure further educations places in this year’s spring application round, while higher education graduates instead received places to study new disciplines. High school graduates will be prioritised in the further education intake for the first time only this autumn.
A programme offering professional training to high school graduates has also had limited success. Education Ministry officials have not been able to say how many students have received such training, but large training providers said that they have been able to fill just half of the quota of places allocated for the youth training initiative.
Maria Linnavirta, a project manager for the Jyväskylä adult education programme, said that their courses only came online during the summer and that it has not been easy to disseminate information about the courses to young people.
“We have used different networks and stakeholder groups and all kinds of outreach initiatives, cooperation partners and city resources, but somehow it feels that a word of mouth approach works best,” Linnavirta said.
This year the government has set aside some 60 million euros to ensure that young adults don’t fall through the cracks. In addition to funding other efforts to train and employ young people, it has at least provided 60 fixed-term contract jobs in employment offices.
