First Forum “Young Leaders of Tomorrow” Forgotten Generation 4.0: A lack of opportunities for young people due to the European Crisis?

By SME Europe

On March 1st at 18:15, SME EUROPE hosted an interactive discussion on the ‘“forgotten generation”’ and how the European Crisis has contributed towards the lack of prospects for the youth of today. SME EUROPE welcomed twenty-two guests including Patrick Voller, Secretary of External Relations of EPP, who gave a welcome speech and a brief introduction to the issue. Others on the discussion panel included; Siegfried Muresan MEP, Georgios Chatzigeorgiou, Chairman of EDS, Daniela Runchi, President of Jade Europe, and our own Executive Director of SME EUROPE, Dr. Horst Heitz, who acted as moderator for the duration of the discussion. The guests enjoyed a lively discussion followed by a buffet dinner.

Patrick Voller opened the discussion by reminding the participants of the EU social vision and that the Council of Ministers adopted the EU Youth Strategy for 2010-2018 which has two overall objectives; To provide more and equal opportunities for young people in the labour market and; To promote active citizenship and social inclusion for all young people. He went on to mention unemployment in youths is a pan-european phenomenon, but is remarkably evident in southern European in countries such as Spain and Croatia whilst to a far lesser extent in Denmark, Austria and Germany for example. Mr. Voller ended his introduction by drawing attention to the fact that it can often be a long road for youths to find stability in the labour market, with many youths choosing to take on temporary jobs in a bid to be eventually hired on a long term contract. The introduction touched on many highly valid discussion points which no doubt played a substantial role in fueling proceedings throughout the evening.

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The floor then passed to the moderator, our own Executive Director Dr.Horst Heitz, who gave an overview of the contributions SME EUROPE is making in this field. The Idea of the “Youth Forum” would give youths and young decision makers or employers, the chance to come together and discuss issues, this concept would undoubtedly be a great to youths in education wanting to break into the job market, and even those currently sailing the harsh seas of a very unstable labour market with little success. Dr. Horst added that SME EUROPE is supporting this concept through media platforms including the European Entrepreneur magazine, and that SME EUROPE is always open to suggestions related to the development of the programme.

Attention now turned to Georgios Chatzigeorgiou who focused on the difficulties facing generation “Y”. Mr. Chatzigeorgiou´s treatment of the issue conveyed his point of view that generation “Y” is a highly educated and well-rounded cross-section of the population, opportunities to work abroad and participate in internships are widely capitilised amongst this particular generation. Despite this level of training, the labour market does not offer these youths the opportunities one might expect from this level of training. He digressed that the current climate in Europe related to the migration crisis has a huge effect on the already rigid labour market. Mr. Chatzigeorgiou noted that EU schemes such as ERASMUS and Horizon 2020 were good albeit small steps in the right direction, but more must be achieved on EU level to override youth unemployment rates. Mr. Chatzigeorgiou finished off by stating the objectives of EDS which are; more investment in entrepreneurship and; encouraging youths to be more creative whilst coming to the table with new innovative ideas.

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Next up was Daniela Runschi who effectively gave an overview of her company´s vision and missions. She works to bring together junior entrepreneurs and invest in their training so that they might learn invaluable skills for the labour market whilst they are still students in higher education. “Effectively the goal of Jade is to bridge the gap between education and the job market”, she added. When Mrs. Runchi had finished, Dr. Heitz mentioned that having worked in cooperation with Jade over the past few years, he can vouch for the continuing success of the programmes in operation. The last words of the panel fell to Mr. Muresan who, as a young MEP (35) sees himself as a good ambassador for youths. Mr. Muresan showed his support for the work and concepts of Jade as well as EDS. He also took a slightly and innovative angle by suggesting that cooperation and programmes on the EU level are all very well, but the focus should also be placed on the individual states in this particular area. Mr. Muresan said that it is great that many youths take advantage of placements and training abroad, but that we should not assume that every youth wants to leave their home in order to learn entrepreneurial skills. In short, on this particular point, Mr. Muresan would like to see mobility of the labour market within the parameters of individual member states. He next proceeded to extol his support for dual education, which he noted is operating well in Austria and Germany but needs to be conveyed further afield, particularly to the suffering southern European states, he called for a harmonization on EU level of dual education. Mr. Muresan then addressed the so called rigid labour market and stated that “the days of permanent contracts are long gone”, he believes that enterprises today are scared to hand out long standing contracts for anything beyond a year or six months because they are scared of another recession. He believes that enterprises need to break out of this “short term contract mindset”, this in turn will increase competitiveness on the job market. He further digressed by informing the participants that “Jobs will exist in the future which don´t exist now”, he was of course referring to the digital market and how important the application of E-skills are becoming day by day and that it is down to the private sector to implement the correct framework conditions this to facilitate this pre-conceived growth.

At this point the event moved to the discussion phase. This was commenced by Mrs. Runchi who felt that younger generations were in competition with older generations. She also made that point that “It is no longer good enough to just go to university”, referring once again to the importance of dual education.
Mr. Chatzigeorgiou referred to the success of vocational training frameworks in Austria and Germany, he also said that competition between generations was not the whole matter, but the fact that higher education does not apply practical business skills in academic curriculums, in relation to this he also mentioned the potential development of ERASMUS for entrepreneurs. He mentioned that keeping up to date with the digital agenda is mandatory if we are to keep up with other global economies.

Mr. Muresan jumped in again to say that he believes the collapse of Schengen would be a disaster for entrepreneurs as it would seriously affect external trade through the re-installation of border controls, and that the UK would suffer the most from a Schengen failure. He further added that youths are discriminated against for not having the right skills applicable to a post whatever their academic credentials, he therefore calls for graduates in areas in which they are needed instead of a generic spread of widely qualified graduates.
Both Mrs. Runchi and Mr. Chatzigeorgiou backed this up by supporting Mr. Muresan´s call for more targeted graduates on the labour market especially in ICT, as we can expect at least 4.5 million jobs created alone by big date in Europe as an example.

The discussion was then opened to the observing participants, where various questions were put to the panel including the prospects of uneducated youths and where they fit into the youth development programmes and whether there is an overflow of graduates on the market compared to ten years earlier. After this, all participants enjoyed a varied self service buffet.

The publication of this document received financial support from the European Parliament. Sole liability rests with the author. The European Parliament is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.