Youth Employment Initiative

Updated 17 June 2014

The Youth Employment Initiative (‘YEI’) was adopted with the revision of the European Social Fund in December 2013. It provides additional funding of €3 billion from the EU budget and at least another €3 billion from national ESF allocations for existing youth employment measures. The YEI will support direct actions for individuals and not structural reforms. These can be, for example, apprenticeships and traineeships, job offers, business start-up support, hiring subsidies – aimed at placing the young person into the labour market. To achieve its objectives quickly, appropriations for the YEI are frontloaded within the first two years of the MFF (2014 and 2015).

Eligible regions for YEI for 2014-2015 are those NUTS level 2 regions that had youth unemployment rates higher than 25% in 2012 and, for Member States where the youth unemployment rate had increased by more than 30 % in 2012, regions that have youth unemployment rates of more than 20 % in 2012.

To read the pdf click here

Regions eligible under the Youth Employment Initiative

Youth unemployment rate 2013

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