‘Quality monitoring’ of the Youth Guarantee ?

The European Commission is an important actor in the process of monitoring the implementation of the Youth Guarantee. In June 2014, as part of the European Semester, the Commission analysed the Youth Guarantee implementation plans of the EU Member States and reported that, for 8 of them, more decisive actions should be taken to implement the Youth Guarantee. At that time, the Youth Forum deplored the lack of progress and asked for more measures to ensure proper implementation of the scheme.

The European Commission just made a step further in the monitoring process with the publication of a set of indicators developed by the Employment Committee (EMCO). The data that will be collected should help the monitoring of the results of the Youth Guarantee at the European level.

These indicators seem very ambitious, as they will imply significant administrative work from national authorities and we hope that Member States will take their responsibility to ensure the efficient collection of data. In addition to direct monitoring to see how efficient the scheme to reach out young people is and what kind of offers they have been given (internship, education, training, job….), these indicators will also be based on more macroeconomic data to evaluate the general situation of young people in the EU and they will attempt to follow-up young people who have received a Youth Guarantee offer on a slightly longer term.

For the European Youth Forum, in addition to these very precise indicators, more could be done to assess the quality of offers to young people under the Youth Guarantee schemes. The monitoring process should not only be based on quantitative analysis but also on more qualitative indicators. For instance, when young people under the Youth Guarantee scheme take up an offer which is an internship, it would be good to know more about this internship placement: is it paid? Does it include any reimbursement of costs? The same is true for young people getting an employment offer under the Youth Guarantee: what kind of contract is the offer of? How long is the offer for?

It might also be the case that young people would not accept an offer. In this case, it would also be interesting to know why they rejected the offer (such as financial resources, social protection issues, mismatch with skills…?). These qualitative indicators could give some useful input to improve the implementation of the scheme.

Let’s make sure that young people are involved as much as possible in this monitoring process so that the Youth Guarantee becomes a quality opportunity for all young people!