The Youth Guarantee Plus Plan 2021‑27 for decent work for young people (YG+P) aims to offer young people the comprehensive support they need to enter the labour market, thereby promoting their socio‑economic integration and their personal and social development. The plan consists of a set of measures organised along six main lines of action: Line 1: Career guidance; Line 2: Training; Line 3: Employment opportunities; Line 4: Equality of opportunities in access to employment; Line 5: Entrepreneurship; and Line 6: Improvement of the institutional framework.
The mid-term evaluation of the YG+P sought to assess the implementation and effectiveness of the programme from June 2021 to January 2025 and the likelihood of the expected outcomes being achieved. The OECD evaluation team chose a theory-based approach, in which the theory of change (ToC) of the YG+P was key. This ToC was used to determine the evaluation criteria and evaluation questions. The OECD team also used a mixed-methods approach, involving the collection, analysis and triangulating of various types of data from a range of sources to provide robust, reliable answers to the evaluation questions.
Based on this work, the mid-term evaluation concludes that the primary objective of the YG+P and its target population properly respond to the current needs and priorities in Spain regarding youth employment. The unemployment rate among young people under 30 years old is high (20.2% in 2024, compared with an OECD average of 10.7%), as is the proportion of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) (16.1%, compared with an OECD average of 12.6%). The YG+P is therefore needed to improve job market insertion and socio‑economic integration of young people.
The mid-term evaluation highlights some areas where the programme’s implementation could be strengthened. As a start, it notes that the coverage of career guidance and training services is rather low. Barely half (49%) of the young people registered in the Youth Guarantee programme during the evaluation period accessed one or more career guidance services. Only 16% received any training services.
Nonetheless, the evaluation found that both the career guidance and training services are appropriate and of high quality. In almost all of the 18 regional Public Employment Services (PES) and 10 intermediary bodies surveyed, the majority of staff providing career guidance and training services are qualified to do so. The feedback from Youth Guarantee participants attests to the quality of these services: 75% of participants are positive about the career guidance counsellors’ skills and how services are adapted to their personal characteristics and needs. This percentage rises to 85% in the case of training services. However, staff in both services are still not sufficiently well trained on gender equality. This is the main area where improvement in service provision is needed.
Within the Youth Guarantee programme, service coverage is highest for employment and entrepreneurship (lines of action 3 and 5): 68% of the young people enrolled during the evaluation period accessed at least one employment or entrepreneurship-support service. This coverage is high thanks to several mechanisms, including agreements with companies under which they offer young people their first jobs and a system of incentives and grants to boost recruitment and support young people seeking to set up their own businesses. Although coverage is high, the incentives and grants need to be better targeted: only half of the regional PES consider that these instruments are largely targeted towards the most vulnerable groups of young people.
YG+P implementation could also be improved in terms of programme dissemination and co‑ordination. Nearly all the regional PES and intermediary bodies carry out dissemination and awareness-raising activities regarding the programme. Yet, one in three YG+P participants are not aware that they have taken part in the scheme. The programme’s internal co‑ordination systems also need strengthening: barely half of the implementing entities have mechanisms to formally co‑ordinate the professionals working on the various lines of action, and less than half of the regional PES have teams working exclusively with Youth Guarantee participants.
The OECD team carried out a regression analysis to preliminary evaluate the programme’s effectiveness. The findings show that the probability of entering the labour market is 27 percentage points higher for vulnerable young people who have used at least one YG+P service than those who have not.
The impact of the different services varies. Employment services seem to increase the probability of finding a job more than training does. For young people in vulnerable situations who access employment services, the average increase is 16 percentage points, compared to 5 percentage points for those who just use training services. Career guidance services alone do not significantly increase the probability of entering the labour market, but when combined with employment or training services, they enhance their impact.
The regression analysis shows mixed results regarding the quality of the jobs that young people obtain after using the services. On the one hand, vulnerable young people who participate in the YG+P have a higher probability of finding a permanent contract than those who do not. On the other hand, participation in the programme does not lead to substantial improvements in the duration of employment, measured as the total number of contributory days or contributory days under a permanent contract. These findings suggest that the programme’s influence on contractual conditions is limited.
The last section of the report provides a series of recommendations to improve the implementation of the YG+P and thus its effectiveness in the medium and long term.