Young people have been hit hardest by the Great Recession. In 2014, the unemployment rate for those aged 15-29 was more than seven percentage points higher than the total unemployment rate. Policymakers are paying more attention to encouraging young people to start their own businesses as a means of easing their entry into the labour market. However, entrepreneurship is not in itself a solution to youth unemployment and is not without its own risks. Although European data show that a higher proportion of young people generally express a preference for self-employment than older age... [+] Show more
Young people have been hit hardest by the Great Recession. In 2014, the unemployment rate for those aged 15-29 was more than seven percentage points higher than the total unemployment rate. Policymakers are paying more attention to encouraging young people to start their own businesses as a means of easing their entry into the labour market. However, entrepreneurship is not in itself a solution to youth unemployment and is not without its own risks. Although European data show that a higher proportion of young people generally express a preference for self-employment than older age groups, the self-employment rate for young people in the European Union (EU) is particularly low. This may be down to specific barriers that they face when starting a business.
As part of the Youth Guarantee, launched in 2013, several Member States have introduced start-up support measures for young job-seekers. However, these measures vary considerably in terms of their content, delivery and aims. This report provides an overview of the current start-up support measures targeted at young people, as well as other more general measures that have relevance for them. It also reviews evaluations of the impact of selected start-up support measures. In doing so, it highlights some of the key methodological issues and limitations of the evaluation exercise.
Key findings are that: (1) youth entrepreneurship measures typically feature 'soft' support in the form of entrepreneurship training, advisory services, mentoring and coaching, or a combination of these with financial incentives; (2) many start-up interventions for young people are discrete, small-scale, temporary measures with relatively limited financial resources, which may reduce their overall potential impact; (3) the growing interest in youth entrepreneurship has not been matched by sound evaluations of the impact of specific initiatives; (4) the more sophisticated the evaluation approach, the lower the identified impact of the programme being evaluated; and (5) considering that expenditure on 'soft' forms of support for young people is likely to grow with the implementation of the Youth Guarantee, there is a pressing need to investigate the impact of these interventions on the labour market outcomes of young people.
Edited excerpts from publication.
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