Early, active measures to fight youth unemployment

Education is the best way of fighting rising youth unemployment, and it is important to start early with active measures to catch young drop-outs. There was broad agreement on this at the Nordic Conference on Action on Youth Unemployment, organised by the Danish Labour Market Authority in Copenhagen earlier this month. 

The Nordic Council of Ministers presented their new report 'Nordic Countries' Anti Youth Unemployment Measures - Mapping and Analysing'. Conference participants got a taste of many of the concrete initiatives which have been put into action by the Nordic countries nationally in order to fight youth unemployment. 

Both the report and the conference came about in response to a marked increase in  unemployment among young people in all of the Nordic countries during the recent economic crisis. The trend worried Nordic labour ministers so much that they commissioned the now published report which maps and analyses the measures to fight youth unemployment which have already been put in place across the Nordic region. 

Easy to fire youths

The situation for young people is worst in Sweden and Finland where one in four youths is unemployed. Norway comes out best and has passed Denmark as the Nordic country with the lowest youth unemployment. 

Despite these differences all Nordic countries prioritise the fight against youth unemployment, and all of them focus on education as the best way forward to prevent youths becoming unemployed and socially marginalised both in the short and long term. 

In Denmark only six in ten people with only secondary education have work. There are far more people with further education in work. As a result, help to get an education is a clear priority in Denmark's fight against unemployment among people under 30, Stig Nørgaard, head of section at the Danish Labour Market Authority, told the conference.

He outlined four main reasons for why Danish youth unemployment remains relatively low: 

• Early and active measures targeted at young people neither in work nor education 
• Strong economic incentives for young unemployed to get an education
• Practical training allowing young people to try out their skills in a real work setting as part of their education
• A flexible labour market where employers are free to fire young people, which reduces the risk associated with employing workers who have yet to demonstrate their ability to work

Mr Nørgaard recognised it is controversial to argue that this kind of labour market flexibility has helped keep Denmark's youth unemployment on a relatively low level. He was still not sure whether this meant other Nordic countries should adapt in the same way. 

Focus on psychological health

There are many reasons for the low youth unemployment in Norway. One is the strong focus on catching young people who are about to fall outside of the education system. To manage that you need new ways of cooperating, explains Helen Engebakken from the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV). She presented a three-party cooperation between three Norwegian municipalities, NAV, educational institutions and businesses. 

"Many drop out of college, so we keep in close touch with colleges to quickly pick up young people in the danger-zone. So far it looks like this actually helps keep youth unemployment down," she says. 

NAV has also chosen to focus to a far greater degree on the correlation between psychological health and unemployment. Some young people struggle with psychological problems in addition to being unemployed, and in many municipalities they risk having to wait for months to see a psychiatrist. One concrete project has therefore been to secure fast access to psychological treatment for young unemployed people with psychological problems, says Vigdis Løndal from NAV.