Amsterdam to tackle youth unemployment with job hunters, counselors

Amsterdam is adding another 4 million euros to its regular 8 million euros budget for fighting youth unemployment in the city. This extra money is to pay for new measures in this fight, including giving unemployed young people a more individual plan of action, deploying job hunters to actively approach employers, and giving young people more guidance and help with debts, homelessness and stress, the city announced.

"Young people are often the first on the street when things go wrong," alderman Rutger Groot Wassink for Social Affairs said. "If they are entitled to unemployment benefits, it is very limited. It takes years to make up for a bad start on the job market. We must do everything we can to prevent this, which is why we are fully committed to fighting youth unemployment by keeping young people in work or getting them back to school.

Due in large part to the coronavirus pandemic, youth unemployment increased from 6.5 percent in 2019 to 8.5 percent in 2020. That percentage may actually be a bit higher, as the effects of the second lockdown is not yet clear. 

The crisis did not affect all young people equally. Young people with a practical and secondary education, and young people from ethnic minorities in particular are struggling to find work. This is partly because these groups are more often employed in the sectors hit hardest by the pandemic, like hospitality and events.