Analysis Of Unemployment Among Young Individuals From Romania By Econometric Methods

Even if the issue of young individual’s inclusion on the labour market was always and important issue on political agendas, in the last two decades this issue this issue gained particular prominence. During the last years, unemployment among youths with ages under 25 years of age has increased significantly and being of 23.5% in the year 2013 at EU-28 level and of 23.6 in Romania. Modern societies provide to young individuals unprecedented opportunities, yet they are faced with major challenges related to the educational and vocational training systems and to the access on the labour market. The reduction, during the times of crisis, in the number of permanent jobs affected disproportionately the young individuals, this group being overrepresented in the category of temporary contracts. Even though, under normal conditions, temporary contracts represent the first step towards more stable employment forms, this fact can create segmented labour force markets, the young individuals being blocked at the level of their inferior segments, and hence benefitting from less training on the job, and being placed in the lower range of remuneration levels; thus, they have much worse perspectives with respect to employment and long-term career. In this context, achieving the objective of 75% employment of labour force for the population aged between 20 to 64 years of age as provided for in the Strategy “Europe 2020” requires new approaches regarding the measures and ways of transition of the youths to the labour market. The low participation of youths on the labour market determined that the considerations about the issue of youths’ integration on the labour market were regarded as a challenge and priority action in the National Strategy regarding Social Protection and Social Inclusion 2008-2010 and in the National Development Plan 2007-2013. The paper presents a brief analysis of youths’ unemployment development in Romania, and an estimate about the evolution of this phenomenon by econometric techniques.