Will the EU's new Youth Guarantee scheme be enough to help the oceans of young people left jobless by the crisis? EPTV travels to Spain to investigate.

Stemming the high tides of youth unemployment

For three months, Jonathan  has been coming three times a week

to this company  specialised in transport and logistics.

This 22 year-old young Spanish man  from the Aragon region

considers himself lucky,  he has landed an internship in a company.

It’s a small victory in a country  hit hard by the crisis,

and where the number of jobless young  people below 25 has peaked to over 53%.

I have several friends  who have qualifications,

who have done degrees,  post-graduate and higher education,

and among them there are those  who are in work and others are out of work.

Both those in a job and those without  feel insecure under the current system.

The opportunity Jonathan has to learn a  trade is thanks to the Youth Guarantee -

an EU programme which guarantees  every young person under 25

within 4 months of them leaving education  or becoming unemployed.

In the company he's working for,  Jonathan is shadowing an employee

who is passing on his knowledge  and teaching him the trade.

From here on in, I’d like us to start  getting to grips with traffic management:

how to organise and plan orders  received from clients by phone or email.

And then we’ll look at the logistics  for the lorries, routes and days.

If you don’t have experience,  companies are reluctant to you.

If you just have a high-school education,  the chances are limited.

and means that when you go  into the job market you are a more rounded.

For the period 2014-2015,  the EU has released 6 billion euros

to getting young people  under 25 into the job market.

Training is a benefit Jonathan enjoys,  but what does the company get out of it?

We receive a dividend  which covers social security costs 100%.

Therefore, we pay nothing  for social security.

What’s more, you can opt  for state subsidies,

we ourselves have requested this  and it’s usually around 1,500 euros.

For this pilot training project, the Aragon  region has received subsidies of 198,000.

One difficulty the project  coordinators have encountered

is finding businesses  open to taking on young people.

They argue that the key to success lies  in keeping the administrative side simple.

95% of Aragon’s companies  have less than 10 employees.

As long as the system which is set up  allows the small enterprise

to carry out all that the law regarding  dual training systems obliges them to do -

the procedures, evaluations and protocols -  if it's straightforward they'll do it.

At the regional employment office,  given the scale of unemployment,

Young people between 25 and 30  have the same problems, if not greater,

as they're getting further adrift  from the labour market.

As a result, the level of frustration  is much higher.

Young people below 25  have more time to react.

But for those who are 29, 28 or 30 years old

and are out of labour market,  it's very tough.

But will the Youth Guarantee  create long-term employment?

Dectractors say training for the unemployed

must go hand in hand  with relaunching the economy.

On the one hand we need to relaunch  the economy through businesses,

but the state must also understand its role  in regenerating the Spanish economy.

Job opportunities can be found  across the European Union.

The EURES network  is a fundamental tool for enabling this:

giving young people access to all that is  out there, not just to options close to home.

Currently there are 7.5 million young people  out of work, education or training.

France recently called for 20 billion euros

to go into enabling Europe's  to tackle this scourge.