Addressing youth unemployment

SJI, YWI and Pobal discussed the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on youth unemployment. Pobal raised ESRI research that “confirmed that younger workers have been hardest hit by the coronavirus” and called for further targeted investment in youth employment programmes to help mitigate against the damage caused by the pandemic. They recommended further targeted investment in youth employment, youth work, and youth mental health initiatives, and cited best

practice examples from the SICAP programme. SJI recommended that the SoS introduce a plan to deal with “young people not engaged in employment, education or training (NEET)”. SJE suggested that this plan should “build on the European Commission Youth Employment Support package”, and should take into account the learning from the Irish experience of implementing the Youth Guarantee after the 2008 financial crash and the findings outlined in the review of the revised Apprenticeship Scheme. YWI called for the Department to build on the employment skills development work carried out by Youth Services, as well as by the previous Youth Employment Initiative and other initiatives such as the Skills Summary.