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Anastasia Balezdrova

This is one of the paradoxes in the job market in the European Union. The other is the high unemployment rate, which is highest among young people. The latest data show that 5.5 million Europeans aged under 25 are unemployed. The situation is particularly hard in some countries, including Greece where, in August this year, the unemployment rate in the 15- 24 age group reached 60.6%. At the same time, the losses due to youth unemployment at European level amount to 150 billion per year.

"This is one of the reasons why the relevant European institutions are focusing on changing the education system in the member states," Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, said in Athens.

"Too often, employers pay much more attention to qualities such as timely decision making, rapid adaptation to a different working environment, good communication skills in foreign languages, critical thinking and others rather than to the formal qualities of the applicants for a specific position. Therefore, the European Commission is taking measures to stimulate the job market mobility and our aim is for Europe to be perceived as a common field of employment," said the Commissioner.

She stated that the Erasmus + programme would start operating next year, which will provide opportunities for pupils, students, apprentices and various other categories of young people to travel to different countries in order to gain knowledge and experience.

Androulla Vassiliou said that a large number of multinational companies are planning to tackle the problem of youth unemployment in Europe. The first of them, Nestlé, launched its initiative today in Athens. At a press conference, Chief Executive Officer for Europe Laurent Freks announced its plans to help 20,000 young people from across Europe to find a job over the next three years.

"We are talking about 10,000 jobs and 10,000 apprenticeships and programmes by 2016, and we will pay particular attention to those countries that have been seriously affected by the financial crisis, such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Italy."

Under the programme, the positions for Greece are 500, the jobs - apprenticeships ratio being almost 50:50, as announced by Nestlé manager for Greece Pavlos Kiortsis. All young people who are interested in the positions are entitled to apply, regardless of their educational level. The payment they will receive will be equal to at least 60% of the minimum wage in each country.

"Our company continues to invest in Europe even during the crisis; it has further developed, thus creating new jobs. We do not expect any responsiveness to our initiative. We have decided to engage in the fight against youth unemployment because if we do not act now we will lose a whole generation," added Laurent Freks, pointing out that the initiative Nestlé needs YOUth - #employment4youth is only the beginning of the actions of the company. "We have also decided to involve our partners and suppliers, which are 63,000 companies from all sectors of the economy. If each of them appoints at least one employee or apprentice, we will be talking about a minimum of 63,000 new jobs. They, in turn, will also attract their associates, smaller companies, and in this way we will be able to reduce youth unemployment."
 
In addition, 120 employees in Nestlé will join the European Alliance for Apprenticeship initiative. They will visit schools and colleges in Europe, where they will explain to the students how to get to know the job market and, to small- and medium sized companies, how to create new jobs and apprenticeships for young people.

In a video address, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy expressed support for the initiative, stating that the European Union will allocate 8 billion euro to the member states to sustain their efforts to tackle youth unemployment. In order for them to obtain the funds, they will need to present reliable programmes to cope with the negative phenomenon.

Minister of Employment Yiannis Vroutsis represented the Greek government and stressed, in his speech, that the government will continue the structural reforms in the economy in order to create a favourable and stable environment for investment that will create new jobs.

For Bulgaria, the number of jobs and apprenticeships provided by Nestlé is 330. The full list of countries is as follows: