Council conclusions on promoting youth employment to achieve the Europe 2020 objectives

The Council adopted conclusions on promoting youth employment to achieve the Europe 2020 objectives, since youth employment, and often youth unemployment, is both a major issue and a priority for the EU and its member states.

The conclusions stress that long spells of unemployment, inactivity or benefit dependency at an early stage of a working life can have significant negative effects on the whole future working career. Therefore youth unemployment and extended inactivity need to be prevented and tackled as a top priority.

In particular, it is important to ensure that our education and training systems betterreflect labour market needs.