A Comparison of Youth Unemployment in the European Union and Slovenija

Gospodarska kriza je v začetku leta 2009 hudo prizadela Slovenijo. Stanje je bilo podobno kot ob osamosvojitvi, ko je Slovenija izgubila skoraj celoten jugoslovanski trg. Razlika je v tem, da si je Slovenija takrat dokaj hitro opomogla. Žal pa v letu 2009 Slovenije ni rešil gospodarski razcvet kot v začetku devetdesetih in posledice se čutijo še danes. Gospodarska kriza se je negativno odražala na trgu dela. Še posebej prizadeto skupino brezposelnih predstavljajo mladi. Za njih je značilna nižja stopnja aktivnosti in opazno višja stopnja brezposelnosti kot pri starejših kategorijah delovne sile. Trenutno bi težko trdili, da imajo mladi z vidika zaposlovanja pri nas lepo prihodnost. Temu ne bi smelo biti tako. Uspešen prehod s področja izobraževanja v področje dela mlade postavi v položaj enakopravnih članov družbe, saj zaposlitev zagotavlja socialno-ekonomsko neodvisnost. Predvsem zaradi slednjega je mlade brezposelne osebe potrebno obravnavati prioritetno in jih čim prej vključiti v delovno okolje. Zaradi večletne problematike zaposljivosti mladih smo se odločili v tem diplomskem projektu preučiti stanje mladih na trgu dela v državah Evropske unije ter podatke primerjati s Slovenijo. V teoretičnem delu smo najprej opredelili brezposelnost in posebej pregledali stanje na trgu dela v Evropski uniji in v Sloveniji. V nadaljevanju smo se osredotočili predvsem na mlade med 15. in 24. letom starosti. Opredelili smo njihove konkurenčne prednosti in pomanjkljivosti na trgu dela. V empiričnem delu smo s pomočjo obdelave statističnih podatkov preučili brezposelnost mladih v državah Evropske unije. Države smo razdelili v dve skupini, in sicer na tiste, ki imajo višjo stopnjo brezposelnosti mladih, in tiste z nižjo stopnjo brezposelnosti mladih. Najprej smo ugotovili, da stopnja brezposelnosti mladih v Sloveniji močno presega skupno stopnjo brezposelnosti. S tem smo potrdili našo prvo zastavljeno hipotezo. V nadaljevanju smo ugotovili, da se je stopnja brezposelnosti mladih v Sloveniji v preučevanem obdobju v večini nahajala pod povprečjem držav članic Evropske unije. S tem smo potrdili še našo drugo zastavljeno hipotezo. Nižja stopnja brezposelnosti mladih od povprečja v Evropski uniji pa sicer ni tako vzpodbuden podatek, saj se je ta v zadnjih nekaj letih v Sloveniji konstantno približevala povprečju držav Evropske unije. V letu 2013 je bila nižja le za dobri dve odstotni točki. V podrobnejši analizi smo ugotovili, da imajo tako v Evropski uniji kot tudi v Sloveniji od gospodarske krize naprej višjo stopnjo brezposelnosti mlajši moški. S tem smo ovrgli tretjo zastavljeno hipotezo, ki je nakazovala na višjo brezposelnost mladih žensk. Kljub večletni problematiki brezposelnosti mladih pa je potrebno poudariti, da se je iz leta 2013 na 2014 stanje mladih na trgu dela izboljšalo. Na to kaže splošen upad stopenj brezposelnosti mladih po celotni Evropski uniji. Z ustreznimi programi, ukrepi in gospodarsko rastjo bomo na dobri poti odpravljanja omenjene problematike brezposelnosti mladih.In the beginning of the year 2009, Slovenia was deeply affected by the economic crisis. The condition of a state was similar to the time of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, when Slovenia lost nearly all Yugoslav economic market. However, at that time (after independence,) Slovenia has managed to recover quickly, which was, sadly, not the case for the year 2009, when, not even the economic revival, could have saved Sloveniaconsequently, the effects are still present nowadays. Economic crisis have had the negative consequences of labour market, the group, which is especially economically endangered, is the youth, which suffers the most from the issue of unemployment. They possess the characteristics of lower level of economic activity and noticeably higher level of unemployment rate, in comparison to the older groups of labour force. Currently, it would be hard to state that the youth has a positive future ahead, especially from the employment point of view, and this ought not to be this way, since a successful transition from the educational sphere to labour market should put the youth in an equal economic position in order to become a fair member of societyfor the employment assures socio-economic independence. Therefore, the youth should be treated preferentially, thus they should be early introduced into working environment. For the issue of youth unemployment that has been going on for years, we have decided, for our diploma thesis, to study the state of youth unemployment of the youth labour market in Europe and contrast it to Slovenia’s state of unemployment. In the theoretical part, we have defined the characteristics of unemployment and researched its condition of the youth labour market in the European Union and in Slovenia. Further on in the thesis, we have focused on the youth in the range of 15th to 24th year of age. We have defined a positive competitiveness and imperfections of the youth labour market. In the empirical part, we have examined the youth unemployment in the European Union with the help of statistical data analysis. Countries were divided into two groups, those that have higher rates of youth unemployment and those with lower rates. Firstly, we have established that the rate of youth unemployment in Slovenia highly exceed a total unemployment rate, which supports our first formed hypotheses. Furthermore, we have determined that youth unemployment rate, in the examined period of time, in Slovenia is mostly below the EU average, which supports our second formed hypotheses. Lower youth unemployment rate in the EU does not come out as a positive datum, however we have to consider the fact that unemployment rate in Slovenia has been constantly getting closer to the EU average, in the last few years. In the year 2013, the rate was only two percentage points lower that the EU average. In the detailed analysis we have discovered that, since the economic crisis, the younger males carry the highest unemployment rateboth in European Union and in Slovenia. Along with that, we have disproved our third formed hypotheses, which primarily indicated that women carried higher unemployment rate, when comparing the two genders. Despite the fact that there clearly exists the long going issue of youth unemployment, we have to emphasize that the situation of youth labour market has been improving from the year 2013 to 2014, according to a general decrease of youth unemployment rate all over the European Union. With the help of suitable programs, measurements and the economic growth we shall be on course to eliminate the issues of youth unemployment