Providing labour market measures to reduce youth unemployment

The Recovery and Resilience Facility helps with EUR 10 million at least 3,178 young people between 16 and 29 years old, registered as unemployed with no or only short-termed work experience participate in the “My first job” scheme by end-2025. The aim of the scheme is to promote the acquisition of work experience and the development of work skills and knowledge by young persons in order to increase their competitiveness in the labour market and to reduce unemployment among young people. The scheme consists of two components: a wage subsidy paid to the employer and the reimbursement of the training costs of a young person.

The beneficiary and the implementor of the scheme is the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund and more information  is available on its website in Estonian and English. The program defining the characteristics of the scheme and the conditions for its implementation and the explanatory letter are published on the website of the Ministry of Social Affairs.

More information and press releases can be found at the following links:

• Project webpage (EST)
• Project webpage (EN)

In addition, in April 2022 the “National action plan to strengthen the Youth Guarantee for the period 2022-2027” was adopted by the Government. The Action Plan includes measures to improve the skills of young people and defines actions to prevent and address youth unemployment, including outreach and prevention of NEET-situation, defines key parties and their roles of preventing and dealing with youth unemployment. The co-ordination of the action plan is divided between Ministry of Social Affairs (labour market and employment related activities) and Ministry of Education and Research (education related activities).

The Action Plan is available on the website of the Ministry of Social Affairs here.