Sittings · Document

REPORT (2025/2184(INI)) 2026-08-27

On the implementation of the Council Recommendation of 30 October 2020 on A Bridge to Jobs – Reinforcing the Youth Guarantee and replacing the Council Recommendation of 22 April 2013 on establishing a Youth Guarantee

Committee on Employment and Social Affairs · Rapporteur: Hristo Petrov

Official HTML ↗ PDF DOCX
✦ In shortFull textProcedure & committee votes
✦ In short · AI summary of this text, generated 18 Sept 2026

This is a committee report on how the reinforced Youth Guarantee has been implemented. It finds that youth unemployment and NEET rates have fallen but that outreach, offer quality, data and funding remain weak. It asks the Commission and member states to strengthen public employment services, reach vulnerable and inactive young people, improve the quality of offers and monitoring, and keep dedicated EU funding for youth employment. It calls for a quality framework for the Youth Guarantee, an open method of coordination on offer quality, and a special report by the European Court of Auditors.

Committee position. The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs finds the reinforced Youth Guarantee has produced results but that outreach, offer quality, data and funding remain weak, and proposes a set of recommendations to the Commission and member states to strengthen it.

Key points

  1. The report reviews the reinforced Youth Guarantee, which promises everyone under 30 a good-quality job, education, apprenticeship or traineeship within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving education.
  2. It finds youth unemployment has fallen by almost ten percentage points in a decade and more than 60 million young people have benefited, but youth unemployment remains nearly three times the rate of the whole population.
  3. It says NEET rates fell from 16.1% in 2013 to 11% in 2025, but many member states still have high numbers and the 9% target for 2030 is not reached everywhere.
  4. It deplores that in 2024 more than half of participants (54%) stayed in the preparatory phase over four months, timely positive exits were 45.1%, and coverage was under 50% of NEETs in many member states.
  5. It regrets that follow-up data are weak, with positive situations falling from 58.3% after six months to 53.1% after 12 months and 30.3% after 18 months.
  6. It warns that most NEETs, especially inactive and hard-to-reach ones, stay outside the schemes, and that outreach relies mainly on those registered with public employment services.
  7. It calls for targeted support for vulnerable groups including young women, single mothers, Roma and Travellers, care leavers, persons with disabilities and rural youth, and for training on non-discrimination for officials and providers.
  8. It asks member states to strengthen public employment services with dedicated resources, training and digital tools, and to assign a dedicated case manager to each beneficiary.
  9. It calls for balanced offers combining employment with education, apprenticeships and training, for fairly remunerated traineeships with written agreements, and for volunteering to be added as a new category of offer.
  10. It asks the Commission to launch an open method of coordination on the quality of offers and to introduce a Youth Guarantee quality framework with monitoring and enforcement.
  11. It calls for adequate funding in the next multiannual financial framework, at least maintaining the 12.5% earmarking within a stand-alone ESF, and for budget tracking with a national Youth Guarantee marker.
  12. It asks the Commission to adopt decisions to assist member states whose youth unemployment and NEET rates are above the EU average, and the European Court of Auditors to prepare a special report.

Who is affected

  • Young people under 30, especially NEETs and those furthest from the labour market, who are the target of the schemes.
  • Member states, which are asked to strengthen public employment services, outreach, data collection and national funding.
  • The Commission, which is asked for technical assistance, a quality framework, an open method of coordination and binding decisions where rates exceed the EU average.
  • Public employment services and other providers, which need more staff, training and capacity to reach and support vulnerable young people.
  • Employers and social enterprises, which are encouraged to offer quality traineeships, apprenticeships and jobs and to support young entrepreneurs.

Figures and deadlines

  • Four months: the deadline to offer young people a job, education, apprenticeship or traineeship after becoming unemployed or leaving education.
  • Almost ten percentage points: the fall in EU youth unemployment over a decade.
  • More than 60 million young people have benefited from Youth Guarantee schemes.
  • 9%: the target NEET rate among young people aged 15-29 by 2030 under the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan.
  • 47%: the NEET rate for young Roma and Travellers aged 16-24, compared with an EU average of 9% for the same age group.
  • 12.5%: the share of the ESF+ budget allocated to youth employment, VET and the school-to-work transition.
  • Nearly EUR 100 billion per year: Eurofound's estimate of the economic loss from failing to integrate NEETs into the labour market.
  • At least EUR 20 billion: the dedicated budget the report wants for the European Child Guarantee.

Legal basis: Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union and Articles 145, 147, 149, 151, 153, 165, 288 and 292 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Written by a language model from the full text only; every figure comes from the text and ¶ links to the paragraph it rests on. Check the text itself before relying on it.