This introductory chapter provides an overview of youth unemployment. In countries hit hardest by the Great Recession of 2008, young people have faced some of the largest obstacles in finding stable employment, or any kind of employment. Even in countries with a better performance record of getting young people into work, there were still significant pockets of youth — categorised as not in employment, education, or training (NEETs) — who struggled to make successful and sustainable transitions into employment. This was not altogether a new feature of European labour markets, but the Great Recession exacerbated problems, and in some case reversed previous successes. The chapter then presents five distinctive characteristics of the current phase of youth unemployment relating to the consequences of increased labour market flexibility, skills mismatch, new patterns of migration and family legacies, as well as an increasing role for EU policy.
Young people and the Great Recession