DIMENSIONS AND PECULIARITIES OF ROMANIAN YOUTH LABOUR FORCE IN THE CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Even if political agendas always had youth’s social inclusion as an important item, in the last two decades this issue became critical. For this age group, in recent years, unemployment reached very high levels (21.8% in 2010 and 21.9% in 2011). According to Eurostat data, youth represent one fifth of total European Union population. Regardless of the exceptional opportunities available for young people in modern societies, they also face extreme challenges related to the educational and training systems and their labour market access. The decrease in the number of permanent jobs due to the crisis had a disproportionate effect on the youth, this group been overrepresented in the temporary contracts category. Even if, under normal circumstances, temporary contracts represent the first step to more stable forms of employment, they can also create segmented labour markets, young people being trapped in the lower segments with less training on the job, lower payment and worse openings for long-term employment and career. In order to achieve the Strategy “Europe 2020” objective of 75% employment for the age group 20-64, new approaches are needed concerning the measures and the ways to boost young people’s transition to the labour force. As a result of reduced youth participation to the labour force, both the Romanian National Strategy for Social Protection and Social Inclusion 2008-2010 and the Romanian National Development Plan 2007-2013 considered youth integration into the labour market as a major challenge and main priority. This paper briefly describes European Union labour market and further presents an analysis of the Romanian youth labour market peculiarities compared to that in the EU-27 and other EU countries; some possible solutions are listed.