Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, and Vítor Gaspar, his counterpart in Portugal, announced a plan on Wednesday to use the German state development bank to help set up a financial institution to assist Portuguese under age 25 in getting jobs or training.
Earlier this week, Ursula von der Leyen, the German labor minister, signed an agreement with her Spanish counterpart, Fátima Báñez García, that foresees bringing thousands of young Spaniards to Germany for apprenticeships. At the same time, Germany will seek to help Spain build a dual-track vocational system in which young people earn qualifications through a combination of work and study.
The initiatives are part of a recent multipronged effort by Berlin to quickly get more young people into the work force, a move that experts say is crucial if a unified Europe is to survive into the next generation. “What is decisive is that we must be faster and more definitive in fighting youth unemployment,” Mr. Schäuble said.
More than 5.6 million people under 25 are without work across the Union, according to figures released by Eurostat. Among the countries with the largest number of young people out of work are the weaker members of the euro zone that are undergoing deep cuts to social services and other structural reforms, part of efforts to recover from the ongoing debt crisis.
Germany grappled with its own youth unemployment problem early last decade. While its numbers then were nowhere near the 60 percent of young people now out of work in Greece, or the nearly 56 percent in Spain, German leaders say their experience can be of value to their E.U. partners.
A crucial element of Germany’s success has been its dual vocational training system, in which young people work three to four days per week in their chosen sector and spend an additional 8 to 12 hours per week in the classroom. At the end of their training, the students must pass a test to receive a certification of their skills.
Ms. von der Leyen said that several of the recent bilateral agreements foresaw programs to help develop a similar system in other European countries.
Next week, German and French officials plan to draw up a bilateral agreement on employment when they meet alongside European business leaders at a conference in Paris. On July 3, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany will gather labor ministers and the heads of 27 E.U. labor agencies in Berlin for a meeting to further discuss the problem.
Details of what the proposed German-French initiative would entail remain vague, but Mr. Schäuble insisted that financing would not be an issue.
He cited the €6 billion, or $7.8 billion, that the Union has earmarked in its new budget for addressing the problem, as well as additional funds that were given to the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg intended for loans to small and midsize businesses, which would help create more jobs.
“We are working to use the existing funds more efficiently,” Mr. Schäuble said in Berlin.
Some experts say the recent bilateral efforts fall far short, given the size of the problem in Europe. Others highlight the need to act quickly, citing studies showing the damaging effects that long-term unemployment can have on youths.
Unemployment in the early stages of a person’s career has a negative impact on the ability to integrate into society, or, in the case of the Union, to later support the idea of more integration on the Continent, said Joachim Möller, director of the Institute for Employment Research in Nuremberg. “The long-term effects reach far beyond the working world,” he said. “It could be catastrophic for their idea of Europe.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/business/global/germany-works-to-curb-eu-youth-unemployment.html?partner=rss&emc=rss