Mr. Ivailo Kalfin:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to make this address. Eurofound is the European Agency for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions and the only EU agency based in Ireland. Its role is to provide knowledge to assist in the development of better social, employment and work-related policies. The agency is tripartite in nature, which means it is run by workers, employers and governments together.

The year 2022 has been designated the European Year of Youth by the European Union. It aims to shine a light on the importance of European youth to build a better future, one which is more inclusive, greener and more digital. I will be speaking about the impact the Covid-19 crisis has had on young people in the EU in general and Ireland specifically, as well as the broader issues facing young people.

Under the banner "Living, Working and Covid-19", Eurofound carried out a large online survey capturing the experiences of citizens across all EU member states at different points over the past 24 months. With over 160,000 responses to date, of which 15,500 have come from Ireland, the survey revealed that throughout Europe and to varying degrees, citizens reported the following problems which I will share on the slides. After Covid we found that they report high levels of loneliness and depression, coupled with low levels of optimism; deep concern about their financial and labour market future, notwithstanding the positive effect of supporting measures, which I will speak about later; high levels of job loss and a dramatic decrease in working time for many; and an increase in telework, which is placing a strain on workers with children.

Young people were once again one of the most adversely affected and vulnerable groups in society. Still recovering from the 2008 crisis, they are experiencing persistent high levels of unemployment and difficulty in accessing housing. As a result of the pandemic and consequent lockdowns, young people were hardest hit by the restrictions as they are over-represented in sectors such as retail, travel, hospitality and the performing arts, which were totally closed during the lockdowns. Young people are disproportionately faced with job loss, a decrease in working time and insecurity about their professional and financial futures. Young people’s opportunities to gain experience and skills have been severely impacted by the impact of the pandemic on education, apprenticeships and training. Young people report low levels of mental well–being, particularly feelings of loneliness and risk of depression. In Ireland specifically, young people aged 18 to 34 had the lowest mental well-being, 6% lower than the EU average. It should be noted that young women are particularly affected across a range of indicators, including work-life balance and mental health.

These are the negative points of the result of Covid but we have positive news as well as will be seen on our next slide. Young people remain slightly more optimistic about the future than other age groups. Optimism in Ireland among 18- to 34-year olds is lower than the other age groups but it is much higher than in the EU 27 as a whole. Compared with the other EU member states, we have much higher optimism among young people. Young people also report a higher level of trust in the EU and national governments, the details of which and exact figures can be seen in the information we provided to the committee. In Ireland in particular, we noticed relatively high trust levels in the EU and national governments during the pandemic compared with other member states. Our graph shows four iterations of the study and that the levels of trust and satisfaction with the pandemic support measures in Ireland are much higher compared with the other EU member states. These figures are for the general population but the figures are similar for young people.

I will turn to the youth employment context. During the 2008 to 2013 economic crisis, we saw how young people were more vulnerable to economic recession than other age groups. Youth unemployment soared above 40% in many EU countries in 2013, with rates above 50% in Greece and Spain. At that time, Ireland’s youth unemployment rate was 26.8%. In 2015, Eurofound calculated that the economic loss to the EU of youth disengagement was estimated at over €142 billion a year.

This is the negative impact on the European economy from youth disengagement. The EU’s Youth Guarantee and a more positive economic climate had seen youth unemployment recover in recent years, reaching pre-crisis levels again in 2019. With the Covid-19 crisis, although we see EU level youth unemployment largely returning to pre-pandemic levels, young people were more often working on less secure, temporary contracts that were easier to terminate, part-time or for low wages, all of which put them at higher risk of job loss and social exclusion.

Eurofound also looked into sectors and their breakdowns. We saw that youth employment was over-represented in sectors most affected by the pandemic, such as retail, food and accommodation services, health and social work as well as arts, recreation and entertainment. Moreover, the impact of lockdown closures on education and human capital accumulation is likely to have long-term implications for young people’s employment participation. If we zoom in on the most vulnerable section of young people, we need to focus on young people in Europe aged between 15 and 29 who are not in employment, education or training, known as NEETs. In 2013, the share of NEETs aged between 15 and 29 was 16.1%. By 2019, the rate had fallen to 12.6%. Now, however, it has increased again as a result of the pandemic. In our research, we found that there are about 2 million young people across Europe who are NEETs. Two thirds of them, which amounts to more than 7 million young people across Europe, are discouraged and are not looking for a job at all.

The European Union adopted and implemented a number of initiatives, which are contained in my written submission, to reduce the number of NEETs across the European Union. A new EU youth strategy was adopted in 2018 and sets out a framework for co-operation with member states on their youth policies for the period 2019 to 2027. The strategy focuses on three core areas of action, centred around the words "engage, connect, empower". To aid the economic recovery from the pandemic, on 1 July 2020, the new Commission launched a youth employment support package to provide a bridge to jobs for the next generation. The Commission put forward a proposal for a Council recommendation, entitled a Bridge to Jobs - Reinforcing the Youth Guarantee, to replace the 2013 recommendation. It extends the age range covered by the Youth Guarantee from age 24 to 29.

The EU has NextGenerationEU in place, which is the European recovery plan, and aims to invest more than €800 billion to make Europe healthier, greener, and more digital. Then there is ALMA, a European Commission initiative, which stands for "aim, learn, master, achieve". This is particularly relevant to the NEETs population of the EU and tries to help these young people find their way to the job market, especially the most disadvantaged NEETs aged 18 to 30 who are vulnerable with regard to their chances of accessing work or training.

Employment issues are clearly critical to the situation of young people today across the EU and in Ireland, and I have tried to focus on this today, but Covid-19 has seen a multitude of other issues come to the fore, including higher levels of stress and related psychosocial risks, difficulties with access to housing, challenges related to raising children and caring for the elderly, job insecurity and, unfortunately, many more that define the world of young people today. Eurofound will continue to research these issues in an effort to provide committee members and other policymakers with the data and analysis they require to respond effectively to the higher levels of trust of Europe’s young people and to shape better policies to improve their lives and work into the future.

I want to flag that, at the end of last year, we published the Impact of Covid-19 on Young People in the EU, which is our latest research on the youth. There is much more information on our website, where there is a dedicated section on youth unemployment. I thank members for their attention, and I am ready to answer their questions.