Let's Talk about STYLE

STYLE (Strategic Transition for Youth Labour in Europe) a research project financed by the European Commission has published its first findings. Researchers have been investigating for one year the current situation in Europe for young people and employment and the causes of youth unemployment.

Too many young people with strong academic qualifications are not getting placed in the right jobs. Young people rarely enjoy the same conditions and benefits that adults do in the labour market. Something needs to change and this project will help people understand what that change should look like. On the 23rd- 24th March researchers and stakeholders met in Grenoble to discuss some interesting findings of the project.

The STYLE research project began three years ago to examine the obstacles and opportunities affecting youth employment in Europe and to assess the effectiveness of labour market policies. This project is led by Brighton University and includes 25 research partners, an international advisory network and local advisory boards of employers, unions, policy makers and NGOs from all over 20 European countries. The European Youth Forum, along with other stakeholders such as the OECD of the ETUI are involved in this project to inform the research and to disseminate the results.

One interesting finding related to the problem of ‘over education’ (the mismatch between the level of education of a young person and the kind of job he/she gets) concerns the role of job search. Indeed, it seems that the job search process and the different actors involved in that job search highly influence the risk of ‘higher education’. For instance, higher education work placements are very useful to avoid the mismatch of jobs and skills, on the contrary, private employment agencies as well as public employment agencies have the most difficulty matching the level of education and skill with the right job. In terms of income security, the findings highlight that young people are not only more likely to be unemployed, but they are less likely to have access to unemployment benefits.

The European Youth Forum hopes that stakeholders and young people continue to scrutinise the policies that are implemented to identify which programmes efficiently tackle youth unemployment. The Youth forum expects that the final results will be promising and helpful to improve the situation of young people in Europe.

For more information on this project click here