Vragen en antwoorden van Hongaarse minister werkgelegenheid over vergroting werkgelegenheid voor jongeren in Europa (en)

The Hungarian Presidency intends to increase the ratio of youth in the labour market, by encouraging employers and establishing a closer cooperation between employers and education institutions, said Sándor Czomba, Minister of State for Employment of the Ministry for National Economy to eu2011.hu, prior to the meeting of Employment Ministers in Luxembourg, on 17 June.

The youth unemployment rate in the European Union is 20.4 per cent, which is over double the rate for the total productive population (9.6 per cent). Precisely for that reason, it is one the most important objectives of the Presidency, to improve the labour market position for the youth. What aspects of this issue were analysed in the International Labour Conference of 15 June in Geneva?

The economic crisis has seriously affected the youth labour market integration; at the same time, the transition from school to work also became longer, and these factors together are causes of the youth unemployment rate.

Even those who have managed to find jobs will often only work part-time or with a fixed-term contract, which usually do not lead to permanent employment. Therefore, we must develop programmes that encourage employers, and the countries to participate in the meeting so they can support one another on that.

Although according to the most recent data, the youth employment level has started to show a slight improvement, it is important that we support their employment. Together with my fellow ministers and the representatives of employers and employees, we have analysed the development of the educational and vocational training system, causes of early school leaving and the opportunities for resolution. Acquisition of the appropriate knowledge and skills is essential for a successful labour market integration; therefore, we must support the learning of skills that are useful for work and cooperation between institutes of education and employers.

In the meeting, we also discussed the role of state employment agencies. These could be important actors in youth employment, since they are capable of reconciling the interests of employers and young employees.

In the 17 June meeting of the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council in Luxembourg, the Presidency is going to adopt conclusions on youth employment. What will be the exact content of this document, and how is it going to support the accomplishment of Presidency objectives?

It is one of the document's aims to set directions of action concerning the future, which will contribute to improving the youth employment situation, hence to accomplishing the 75 per cent employment target set out in the Europe 2020 Strategy. The purpose of the conclusions is to find solutions to such problems, as the differences between skills learned at school and the requirements of the labour market, the especially adverse situation of certain disadvantaged groups, or segregation in the labour market. In addition, the conclusions of the Council will invite Member States to take action concerning such priority areas like the expansion of apprenticeship opportunities. The document will also call on the European Commission to implement its “Youth in Motion” flagship initiative efficiently.

All that will provide a good starting point for Member States and the European Commission for the implementation of specific measures later.

The Luxembourg meeting will deal with recommendations on employment policy, the assessment of the National Reform Programmes, and the documents concerning the Employment Policy Performance Appraisal System. What result is the Presidency targeting with these issues?

One of the most important priorities of the Hungarian Presidency is the successful completion of the first European Semester. The process of the Semester will raise economic and social policy coordination in the Community to a new technical level. As the Presidency holder, our tasks concerning this are to successfully start the Europe 2020 Strategy, which contains the medium-term economic and social vision of the Union, and to develop in cooperation with Community institutions such procedures that will enable the efficient coordination of policies in the coming ten years.

The development and assessment of National Reform Programs and the adoption of country-specific recommendations are a good finale of this process, since these determine the direction in which the entire Community and the individual Member States should go in order to overcome the challenges they face and to attain their medium-term objectives. In the coming years, the Employment Performance Appraisal system will be an important tool in assessing Member State efforts and for evaluating the implemented measures. If we manage to apply it efficiently, we will be able to identify those vulnerabilities, and where necessary, we can take appropriate actions at the level of individual Member States in order to attain the objectives.

The tools of economic policy that will be efficient in boosting employment may vary among the Member States. What methods can work in the entire Union? Are you not concerned that a Union-level, "one-size-fits-all" solution could be counter-productive?

The Community level economic policy coordination is based on the insight that concerted Member State actions that are built on synergy will result together in higher efficiency. Naturally, there is no "recipe" that would contain a policy mix appropriate for each Member State. Optimal intervention means a customised solution in each case, depending on the economic and social policy regime of the given Member State. But such general models do exist, so they can be used as a basis for attaining nearly optimal results by the appropriate elaboration of the details.

The most relevant example for that is the so-called "flexicurity" model of flexible security, which works very efficiently in northern countries. With the flexible transformation of employment law regulation, the strengthening of the social safety net, the development of additional services aimed at finding employment and the adaptation of educational and vocational training systems to the requirements of the labour market, this is capable of developing a competitive framework that will simultaneously increase the capacity of the economy and the social safety availability in the society as well.