Meeting in La Ravoire: The debates on youth unemployment

Group 1

First, Zoltan  explained the Hungarian solution to decrease  youth unemployment; he said that there must be officers, who look after the unemployed. They have three job offers and if the person does not take either of them, he has to take the fourth job. If he does not do this, he has to go to prison. We thought that this is too radical for us. We decided that the best solution would be quotas of young  people employed in companies, like a certain percentage, and the reduction of taxes for companies for every young person they employ. In the discussion there was lots of disagreement in our group and later in the big discussion many disagreed with the other groups. Sidonie and Naël, our presenters, had to answer many questions but all in all we won the discussion with 44 students who agreed with our proposition and our idea was chosen as the best idea of all groups.

Marie Hohlbein, Léa Gilgen, Héloise Guyon

Group 2

In our group we decided  to choose the following  law:

It’s about having international graduation and university degrees  that every European country accepts. Because on the one hand there are too many qualified unemployed people in certain countries which have no jobs anymore, and on the other hand there are too many vacancies in companies, but no qualified workers in other countries. 

In order to reach this aim, we need to increase the numbers of international workplacements, which means  that the staff at those international companies have to learn English, because they need to communicate with their colleagues.

The state can offer language courses for learning English to the staff and they should offer courses where the foreign workers can learn the language which is spoken in the chosen country.

The other students  said that our proposal  is good in theory, but there are many companies  that are already doing that. At last we chose another proposal, our proposal received 35 votes out of 60.

Franzi, Franzi, Ombeline, Alexia

Group 3

In our group we discussed the proposal to decrease youth unemployment in Europe. Firstly, we talked about a quota which forces companies to employ a certain percentage of young people. We liked that idea because it would help young, unexperienced people to get experience.

Secondly, we had  the suggestion to carry out a work placement in a company during school. Respectively, have school  and companies work in harmony. But we found that it would take too much time to do this while going to school which would increase the time at school. That is why we did not choose this idea.

Thirdly, we discussed harmonizing diplomas and conditions of employment. We liked that suggestion most because it gives everyone the ability to go wherever work is available for his or her  skills.

Group 4

One of the most controversial issues of our society today is youth unemployment. For this reason, we discussed possible solutions in a group consisting of people representing 4 countries : France, Hungary-Austria, Czech Republic and Germany. We came up with many brillant ideas, now we would like to present them.

Ø  Let not the states but the free market solve the problem (qualified people take jobs wherever they are needed, the country doesn’t matter)

Ø  Encourage dual training (work and university at the same time) for every level of education. 

Ø  Encourage companies to implement positive discrimination so that they hire more young people.

Ø  More sandwich courses, which means companies and universities are working together (it is similar to the idea above)

Ø  Force universities to teach the students how real company life is, not just how to be a perfect boss .

After presenting our ideas, we came up with additional suggestions and improvements for solutions.

Ø  So that people get jobs abroad, the university degrees and diplomas need to be equal all over Europe. In addition, mobility needs to be increased.

Ø  For the problem of the lack of people doing manual jobs, older people who already work in that area should go into schools and present their profession so as to show  young people from an early age that those jobs are attractive, too.

Finally, we decided on one final solution which we presented in front of everyone. This was the encouragement of dual training.

Biborka, Sebastien, Naël , Leila

Group 5

During the debate, we spoke about law proposals.  We decided  to choose the fifth law, which was «to increase mobility in the EU and harmonize diplomas and increase work placements abroad.» We thought that the youth of other countries can have experience and learn about other cultures and the job which they are doing. It will help them to become more mature.  When a young person goes to another country, he is looking for experience and money, and this way he will learn how people work in foreign countries.

Clara, Elena, Laura, Madison, Pedro, Jessica, Simona, Janie, Léa

Group 6 

At the begining we started to search all the laws that could resolve the problem of youth unemployment…. We found four laws, the first one was about introducing a quota of young people in each company, the second one was about reducing taxes according to the number of young  people in the company (we have to install a quota, about 10% of young persons in each company), so if the company has more than 10%, it will reduce their taxes, but if they have less than 10% youngsters, taxes will be higher, or even maybe they will have to pay a fine…. The third one was to increase the salary of the trainees, and not let the companies fire this trainee until he/she has finished his/her CDD (fixed term contract). In our last law, we thought that it may be possible to give priority to the former trainee to work in the company where the trainee has been working… instead of giving it to the person that just wants to work in it but has never been a trainee in this company (he/she may be a trainee in another company).

After a vote in our group, the second law had the most «for», so we adjusted it a bit: we divided the companies into three types (Small: less than 50 people working there; Medium sized ones: between 50 and 500; Big: more than 500), and fixed that the quota will be only for the medium sized companies (8%) and the big ones (12%)…

But when it was time to present the laws, group 1 had the same idea as us, so we chose to present  law number four…

William, Charles, Emmanuelle, Soukayna, Lucas, Lukas, Veronika, Daniel, Victor, Dominika