Youth Employment Bureau in Catalunya: stimulating entrepreneurship among youth

What are your main activities?

La Oficina Jove de Treball (Youth Employment Bureau) is a service from the Direcció General de Joventut (General Youth department) which has as a main function to facilitate the Access to the labour market for young people aged less tan 35 years old. We give these young people advice regarding their profesional orientation, work-related juridical advice, starting a business and working abroad.We really help youths by for example giving them monthly trainings in stimulating them to use all possible resources in their environment. Besides the trainings we also offer individual advice sessions.

What do you notice wih regard to the increasing youth unemployment in Catalunya?

In the previous 3 years the total number of unemployed young people has increased strongly. On average we help about 5.000 youths a year, but in 2010 this quantity increased with 45% in comparison to the year 2009. Important to stress that the mayority of our clients have finalized a medium or high education, but when finalized their studies does not give them the ensurance they can actually find a job. To help the young generation in these circumstances we stimulate entrepreneurship among those youths. We believe that entrepreneurship is very important in stimulating employment, because we see that employment is especially increasing in small and medium enterprises.

Do you notice an increasing number of young people leave the country to find a job abroad due to the high unemployment?

According to recent studies young people are indeed leaving abroad to find a job, but we believe this is not only due to the situation on the labour market but this also has to do with a more open mentality that includes more mobility in the labour market. Young people choose to go abroad in the light of their personal and profesional development. We do stimulate these people to remain in Catalunya, to not loose hope and to focus on starting their own business.

What can the European Union do to stimulate the employment in European countries?

The EU  does already take this situation very seriously with for example projects like ´Youth on the Move´. One of the priorities of Europe 2020. We believe that initiatives like that stimulate the employment among youths from different perspectives, like ´Youth on the Move´ are very helpful. At the same time, in the light of the new European financial structure for the period 2014-2020 it is important that the EU involves more parties, like cities, to be able to combat the situation. Besides that, we monitor policies carried out by other governments on a local and on a national level.