Ukraine Outpaces 19 EU States in Youth Employment

KYIV, Ukraine, November 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

The Eastern European state of Ukraine ranks number ten in Europe by the youth employment rate. Ukraine is a runner-up to Sweden and Estonia, while it is ahead of other 19 EU member-states. This was stated by the Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine, Natalia Korolevska, at the parliamentary hearings at Verkhovna Rada.

In the first six months of 2013 the employment level of Ukrainian citizens of 15-24 years of age reached 32.6 percent, reported the minister. Less than half of those registered with the State Employment Service as unemployed are young people under 35. Comparably, the youth unemployment rate in the EU was reported to be more than twice as high as the that in the adult category - 23.3 percent against 9.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Correspondingly, during March 2012 - March 2013, the unemployment rate for young people in the EU increased in the majority of member-states; in two states it remained above 50 percent and in six countries it stayed above 30 percent, according to register.consilium.europa.eu.

Youth employment is among ongoing key government strategies in Ukraine. Thus, the newly adopted Law on Employment (of January 1, 2013) aims at raising competitiveness of youth at the labor market, as well as stimulates employers to create new jobs, also suitable for young people, reads kmu.gov.ua.

Among the tools used for stimulating the employment of young people, the government introduced quotas of five percent of employment of less competitive individuals at the labor market with the businesses accounting for more than 20 employees. Another incentive is providing employers, who hire recent graduates for the jobs within the State Employment Service for a period of at least two years, with the reimbursement of 100 percent of a single social tax.

Interestingly, the EU also aims at reducing youth unemployment by adopting new guarantees. Namely, starting 2015, every unemployed EU citizen under 25 years of age must be employed within the timeframe of four months. Such social safeguards for young people were decided on by the participants of the special EU summit of November 12, 2013, in Paris. Within two years, the EU plans to allocate EUR 45 billion for combating youth unemployment.