Editor’s note: This article was first published in March 2012; the 50% youth unemployment rate in Spain, the 20% rate of insecure contracts in Europe and the EU programmes described under the Europe 2020 strategy are from that time. Erasmus and related programmes have since been reorganised, as Erasmus+ from 2014.
Those of us old enough that our memory is starting to fail remember with nostalgia the days when Spaniards emigrated across Europe in search of better opportunities.
People still find work beyond our borders today, and yet, despite new technologies and advances in communication, it is striking that more than 81.5% of young Spaniards are unaware of the job opportunities offered by the European Commission, the European Parliament and Spain’s Secretariat of State for the European Union. What’s more, only 8% of young Spaniards have ever worked outside the country.
In Spain’s current situation, 50% of young people are out of work, and eight out of ten young people have never heard of these training and work-placement programmes, known as Youth on the Move and New Skills for New Jobs.
Youth on the Move
Popularly known as the Erasmus, Leonardo or Marie Curie grants, these are promoted by the Directorate-General for Education and Culture and the Directorate-General for Employment, and are part of the Europe 2020 strategy.
New Skills for New Jobs
Here the aim is to analyse the European labour market in order to identify and anticipate the skills companies need, so that curricula can be adapted to what the labour market actually demands.
Who it is for
It is aimed at unemployed people under 25. In Europe, insecure employment contracts reach 20%, and countries are being urged to introduce reforms that improve the quality of education systems so that young people have better job opportunities.
Featured image: Andersen Pecorone, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
