Youth Guarantee to Combat Unemployment

Abstract

The youth have always been among the main target groups of labour market policy. Their importance has been in increase as today’s youth are said to have particularly severe difficulties entering the labour market. This study aims at shedding some new light on the labour market prospects of Finnish youth by examining the days that young cohorts spend in unemployment and in unsubsidized employment. Our data covers two decades 
so we can compare today’s youth labour markets to those of the earlier generations. After that we take a closer look at recent changes in the labour market policy targeted to the youth. Our main interest focuses on three aspects, viz. timing, displacement and composition of activation. It turns out 
that the timing and allocation of activation measures changed after the introduction of Youth Guarantee in 2005. We find that the Guarantee placed more emphases on young unemployed persons who have a vocational degree than on young people without further education. The most likely explanation for this is the way that the exact dates of activation set in the Guarantee combined with the existent practices of activating different 
groups of young people. We also report some mild displacement effects and large changes in the composition of active measures.

Full text (julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi)

Authors

Kari Hämäläinen, Ulla Hämäläinen, Juha Tuomala

Additional Information

• Open Access: yes.
• Cite as: Hämäläinen, K., Hämäläinen, U., & Tuomala, J. (2014). Takuulla nuorten työttömyyttä vastaan. Työpoliittinen Aikakauskirja, 57(1), 18–29. https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2023021326879