Analysis of Trends in Youth Unemployment in the European Union: The Role and Importance of Youth Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Youth unemployment is one of the crucial problems facing modern society. Although the findings of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and European Commission (EC) suggest that around 40% of young people are interested in starting their own business after finishing formal education, current studies indicate that the entrepreneurial potential of young people is still underutilized. The analysis of the trend of youth unemployment in the countries of the European Union (EU) in the period from 2009 to 2022 conducted in this chapter gave a clear insight into the decreasing tendency of youth unemployment from 15 to 29 years of age in the last 10 years. However, although there is a tendency for the youth unemployment rate to fall, it is still significantly higher than the unemployment of other age categories. Further analysis carried out in this chapter was related to testing three trend models on a selected data set on youth unemployment. The most precise measures, mean absolute deviation (MAD) and adjusted R², unequivocally indicated the selection of the quadratic trend model as the most appropriate for the observed data set, given that the MAD value was the lowest (444.55) and the adjusted R² coefficient was the highest (81.88%). Furthermore, through a comparative analysis of the linear and quadratic trend models, the authors predicted youth unemployment in the coming period and concluded that by applying the estimated equations of both trend models, a further decline in youth unemployment in the EU could be expected.

Citation

Papić-Blagojević, N. and Stankov, B. (2024), "Analysis of Trends in Youth Unemployment in the European Union: The Role and Importance of Youth Entrepreneurship", Grigorescu, A. and Andrei, J.V. (Ed.) Entrepreneurship and Development for a Green Resilient Economy (Lab for Entrepreneurship and Development), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 181-204. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83797-088-920241007