Expand opportunities for young people by filling gaps in education, employment, and civic participation  

• Easing the transition from school to work is important, owing to very high levels of youth unemployment in most ECA countries.
  • The duration of unemployment as young people transition from school to work can be long in some countries. In 2000, more than about 60 percent of unemployed youth remained so for more than six months in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the Slovak Republic. (O’Higgins, 2003).
  • In Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the end of the civil conflict in the late 1990s, young people face high unemployment. In 2004, the unemployment rate was 62 percent for those 15-19 years old, and 37 percent for those 20-24. Among youth employed in 2001, a third were jobless in 2002 and a quarter in 2004. (Fares and Tiongson, 2006)
• Even as youth remain unemployed there are skills shortages.
  • The World Bank’s investment climate surveys show that more than a fifth of all firms in developing countries (including Latvia) rate inadequate skills and education of workers as a major or severe obstacle to their operations.
  • With the exception of the Visegrad countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech and Slovak Republics) 15-year olds fall behind in reading, mathematics and problem solving skills relative to rich countries.