After worsening youth labour market outcomes in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, Spain made considerable progress in reducing its youth unemployment rates in the second half of the 2010s, which dropped from 48.3% for 15–24-year-olds at the end of 2015 to 32.5% in 2019. However, providing young people with stable and quality employment opportunities remained a challenge. The incidence of temporary employment among 15–24-year-olds was 68% in 2019; the highest rate in the OECD. These difficulties became more acute during the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing the Spanish youth unemployment rate upwards again to 34.8% in 2021, compared to an OECD average of 12.8%.
In response to this situation, Spain approved the Youth Guarantee Plus (YG+) Plan 2021-2027 for decent work for young people, whose main objectives are: i) recover the quality of youth employment; ii) fight the youth employment gender gap; and iii) reduce youth unemployment. To achieve those objectives, the plan includes 69 measures grouped into six separate work streams, namely: i) orientation; ii) training; iii) employment opportunities; iv) equal access to employment opportunities; v) entrepreneurship; and vi) improvement of the institutional framework.
It is within this context that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provided technical support to the Spanish State Public Employment Service (Servicio de Empleo Público Estatal, SEPE), for the design of a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework for the YG+ Plan.
Based on this M&E framework, the OECD and the European Commission supported SEPE on implementing a mid-term evaluation of the YG+ Plan. The evaluation published in October 2025 assesses the Plan’s implementation for the period from June 2021 to January 2025 and examines the likelihood of achieving the expected outcomes. The results highlight the relevance and preliminary effectiveness of the Youth Guarantee Plus Plan and identifies potential areas for improvement. The report concludes with a series of recommendations to increase the medium and long term effectiveness of the Plan.
