Promises, promises…
Can Cyprus bring youth unemployment down from 44%?
A new plan to try and combat record youth unemployment at 44% will be introduced in December, probably the sixth in as many months, with President Nicos Anastasiades telling his counterparts in Paris that the new measures will be proactive in an effort to identify vulnerable people and those most at risk.
Youth unemployment in Cyprus stabilised at 43.90% in September, compared to the same figure a month earlier and 28.00% last year, far higher than the long term average of 14.42%, dating back to 2009.
The Cyprus rate is nearly double the Eurozone youth unemployment currently at 24.1%, while the general rate climbed to 76,000 persons out of work, or 17.1% in September compared to 16.9% or 75,000 persons in August, according to Eurostat.
The Eurozone unemployment rate was 12.2% in September, stable compared with August, while the EU28 rate was 11.0%, also stable compared with August.
In his address at the EU Conference on Youth Employment in Paris, Anastasiades said that in the past few months, following the June European Council and the Berlin Conference, all member states intensified their efforts to address youth unemployment, tackling it as an urgent priority.
“By the end of December Cyprus will submit our Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan which will be part of a wider Youth Employment Action Plan”, he said, summarising the measures and actions into four major groups.
First, early intervention to prevent youth from falling into unemployment, to provide for early identification of cases of youth at risk and to take up early action for youth integration and second, introducing a balanced mix of appropriate measures that are targeted, sustainable, generate where possible multiplier effects and predominantly facilitate either directly or indirectly the creation of new jobs.
The third measure will be to improve the link between supply and demand, through the upgrade of advisory services to the unemployed, aimed at improving the effectiveness of the measures and the efficient use of the available funds, while the fourth measure would be to address the demand side by improving services to employers and promoting entrepreneurship and a favourable business environment, by fostering an entrepreneurial mind-set, increasing availability of start-up support services and finance.
“It is vital that the measures that we will implement within 2014 to immediately curb unemployment are consistent with our long term objectives and actions beyond 2015,” Anastasiades said.
He said that these measures must be conducive to the creation of conditions for sustainable growth, the creation of an adequate number of good quality new jobs and the timely forecast of future skills for emerging sectors of the economy.
“To yield long-lasting and effective results, it is important that most of the measures be pursued simultaneously in an integrated manner, which of course is easier said than done, considering the financial constraints most of us have to deal with”.
The president added that the exchange of good practices among member states not only works towards strengthening solidarity but also provides for a shared learning environment that allows us to use and adapt successful measures, according to national specificities.
“Facilitating mobility can also be a useful tool that may help reduce unemployment. I believe that, with full respect to the principles of free movement, we should look for immediate ways to improve the efficiency of mobility”, he said.
Anastasiades welcomed the initiatives promoted by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank, towards enhancing the access of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to finance with a view to enhancing investment and business activity and, consequently, creating new jobs.
EU SOLUTIONS ELUSIVE
Soaring youth unemployment topped the agenda of the European jobs summit on Tuesday, but leaders eschewed radical proposals to tackle a problem that risks fuelling social unrest and political extremism.
Nearly 6 mln people under the age of 25 are without work in the EU, with jobless rates among the young at close to 60% in Spain and Greece.
A July jobs summit in Berlin set out plans to devote at least 6 bln euros over the next two years to addressing the problem – a big headline figure that looks less impressive when spread among the many unemployment blackspots in the region.
But with host President Francois Hollande, the leader of the euro zone's number two economy more unpopular than ever and bigger neighbour Germany still in political limbo following elections, conditions for advancing a potentially divisive debate could hardly be less favourable.
"The aim is not to add further programmes but to fine-tune implementation of what has been decided," an adviser to Hollande said of measures that include a guarantee to provide a job or training opportunity for every youth unemployed for over four months.
That means the meeting is likely to skirt more controversial areas such as growing question marks over whether, given Germany's record trade surplus, Chancellor Angela Merkel is doing enough to nurture domestic demand and so help stimulate growth – and jobs – in the wider euro single currency zone.
Hollande has seen his popularity ratings plummet to a record low with his failure to bring overall unemployment down from around 11% – and joblessness among youths from over double that – a major factor.
The French president has hitched his credibility on engineering a turnaround in the jobless trend by the end of the year, and increased state-funded jobs may help him create a short-term bounce.
Concerns in France that some employees are being undercut on costs by countries with no minimum wage rules have been highlighted in recent weeks by a series of often violent protests in Brittany by food sector workers threatened by plant closures.
