The Use of Multivariate Techniques for Youth Unemployment Analysis in Poland

The labour market situation is considered to be the most widely discussed part of economic development. However, it should be noted that the unemployment situation of young people (aged 15 -24 years) in Poland in general terms seems to be problematic. Overall, the unemployment rate among young people in Poland is significantly higher than the overall unemployment rate in the EU. Moreover, the situation varies greatly across the regions. Using multivariate techniques as a theoretical framework, the main goal of the paper is to identify groups of Polish regions that share similar patterns regarding unemployment among young people. The initial calculation is based on the concept of the taxonomic measure developed by Hellwig. The final method used to create clusters of objects (across 16 voivodeships of Poland) is cluster analysis. A segmentation of the voivodeships is observed for the years 2005 and 2014, based on selected indicators to determine the labour market situation. Through the exploration of the advantages of multivariate methods, the nature of youth unemployment is revealed in more precise detail. Indeed, dendrogram analysis divided the voivodeships into five groups, which are characterized by similar features associated with the labour market. It was found that the groups which emerged in 2005 have a different composition of regions than in 2014; this difference seems to be connected to the economic crisis.