Following the 2008 economic crisis, youth unemployment rates rose sharply in many OECD countries. They reached alarming levels in many regions, creating a social and economic emergency. In 2012, the average unemployment rate among young people aged 15‑29 years in OECD countries stood at 13.7%, while among under‑25‑year‑olds, it rose to 16.7%. For comparison, unemployment in the under‑25 age group was 52.9% in Spain and 55.3% in Greece (OECD, 2024[2]). In addition, the average proportion of young NEET aged 15‑29 in OECD countries was 16.2%, but in Spain this rose to 25.3% and in Greece to 27.5%.
The European Commission responded by adopting the Youth Employment Package in December 2012, which included a proposed Recommendation to Member States on introducing a Youth Guarantee (European Commission, 2012[3]). This Recommendation was formally adopted by the EU’s Council of Ministers in April 2013 (Council of the European Union, 2013[4]). Youth Guarantee was a landmark initiative that sought to ensure that all young people under the age of 25 receive a good-quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education.
For most European Union (EU) Member States, implementing the Youth Guarantee required deep structural reforms to their education, training, and job-search systems to improve young people’s employability and their transition from school to work. By joining the Youth Guarantee in 2013, Spain committed to implementing the necessary measures to reduce youth unemployment and offer decent employment opportunities to younger generations. In December 2013, to meet these commitments, Spain approved a National Plan for the Implementation of the Youth Guarantee, which aligned with the Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment Strategy 2013‑16.
This National Plan had four lines of action: 1) improve employability; 2) improve intermediation; 3) promote recruitment; and 4) promote entrepreneurship (Ministerio de Empleo y Seguridad Social, 2013[5]). The National Plan led to the adoption of Royal Decree‑Act 8/2014 of 4 July on urgent measures for growth, competitiveness and efficiency. It was later converted into Act 18/2014 of 15 October, which laid the foundations for the Sistema Nacional de Garantía Juvenil (national Youth Guarantee system) (SNGJ) in Spain. Under this act, the central government worked with the autonomous communities to build a public system offering career guidance, training, job matching and other support measures to young people who met the requirements of the Youth Guarantee. They also created a single electronic record system and established co‑ordination and monitoring mechanisms for SNGJ implementation and development, under a Delegated Commission for the Monitoring and Evaluation of the SNGJ.
In the years following the approval of the National Plan, Spain continued to adopt measures and modifications to increase young people’s access to, and enrolment in, the system. For example, Act 25/2015 of 28 July raised the age limit for accessing the SNGJ from 25 years to 29. Then, Royal Decree‑Act 6/2016 of 23 December introduced a set of urgent measures aimed at improving registration procedures and service provision in the system and at boosting the employability and employment of young people. Order ESS/668/2017 of 13 July designated the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) as the competent body for the management of the SNGJ. Finally, Royal Decree‑Act 8/2019 of 8 March made the registration system more flexible, at the request of the Public Employment Services (PES).
According to Spain’s 2020 Youth Guarantee country fiche, the European Commission’s Employment Committee concluded in its multilateral surveillance review that Spain had made significant progress in implementing the Youth Guarantee through these measures (European Commission, 2020[6]). The programme was reaching an increasing number of young people due to better outreach and a simplified registration process. Nonetheless, the report highlighted a few persistent challenges: guaranteeing access to the programme for the most vulnerable groups of young people, ensuring that services were good quality in all regions and improving co‑ordination among the different actors involved.
