More than any other age group, the employment opportunities of the young are impacted by economic cycles, and they are often the first to see the effects of various crises in their employment situation. Last summer, when news stories told us that the unemployment rate had exceeded 10 percent, the same figure for those under 25 was 26 percent.
After a long period of improvement, the employment situation of recent graduates has also worsened significantly since 2023. Even though the situation seemed to improve last summer, it got worse again in the autumn. By September, the unemployment levels of new graduates had returned to the top unemployment levels of 2015.
It also says something about the employment situation that data from Duunitori shows that older and more experienced job seekers competed for the same summer jobs as young people last summer. It has varied consequences when young people lose out on their first summer jobs, internships and jobs in their own field despite their best efforts. Temporary struggles are disheartening and take a toll on both the bank balance and the self-esteem, but when the difficulties continue long term, it can leave serious and even lasting traces on a young person’s life. Hopefully this is something we learned from the recession in the 90s.
Behind the current difficult employment situation, however, we can see concerning longer-term developments. Even though the youth unemployment statistics have been fairly steady in the 2000s, these days young people’s periods of unemployment are significantly longer, and long-term unemployment is much more common.
In 2008 just over 300 young people had been unemployed for more than a year; this year the same figure is 7,000.
Even though only a small percentage of those who are long-term unemployed have a university degree, their number has also grown recently.
There have been attempts to tackle this through the Youth Guarantee that came into effect in 2013, which guarantees a place of study, a job or employment services for all unemployed young people or recent graduates within three months. Despite this, the Government has not been able to stop these concerning developments. Education has been and continues to be a key factor that protects against unemployment – and that is why education is also a key issue when trying to solve youth unemployment.
In the debate on increasing the education level, it is critical to also consider the young people whose education path is cut short at the very early stages. This group also makes up a significant number of the long-term unemployed.
One in five people under 35 have dropped out of their studies at some point. For some, this has been due to changing fields, but others have stopped their studies completely. Approximately one in five young adults have no degree at all past comprehensive school level. The path of many future social scientists may have been cut short just because they did not get the support they needed at a critical point.
Young people’s faith in the future is the lowest it has ever been since the Youth Barometer was started, perhaps with good reason.
It also tells its own story that the number of student loans that Kela has had to send to debt collection has almost doubled in a year.
When students move into the world of work – or unemployment – with tens of thousands of euros in student loans, it can do all sorts of things to their mood. Good job prospects would also assuage these fears.The belief in the link between education and getting a job has remained strong, despite everything. For the future of our society, it is critical that this continues to be the case. However, if these challenges in finding employment persist for young people and recent graduates, their belief in the power of education may begin to diminish.
We should be worried about youth unemployment even if the economic fluctuations start to ease. The current Youth Guarantee is not enough – what we need now is political creativity.
Annika Nevanpää, BASc., Advocacy Specialist at Finnish National Youth Council and Youth Sector
The author has based this essay on the most recent data from the Youth Barometer and Statistics Finland and analyses from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.
