News / Reports

Youth unemployment to reach record levels in EU

Wednesday, 02 June 2021 10:20 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 02 June 2021 10:20 PM ]

Jerome Hughes

Press TV, Brussels

The European Commission reports that 45% of adults in the EU have now received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. In its latest budget policy recommendations under Economic Semester 2021, the commission claims the vaccine rollout is providing hope.

There is no official data available yet, but it is clear that, right across the EU, businesses allowed to reopen in recent weeks simply have not. Government funding to support businesses while they were closed and financial support to keep jobs afloat is now being cut.

This means the true scale of the economic crisis in the EU is very unclear at the moment. The bloc is on course though to vaccinate most adults before September 1.

However, economists say that will not prove to be the proverbial silver bullet. Getting things back to how they were prior to COVID-19 will take years, they warn. Concern persists over the possibility that, as they emerge, new strains of COVID-19 might be resistant to existing vaccines.

Even before we get to learn about the real data in the coming months, things are already bad. Experts say the EU needs to focus much more on creating quality jobs for young people.

There is massive government and personal debt in the EU. The European Commission has announced it will not enforce austerity on the 27 member states until 2023. The question is, how will citizens be impacted when that does start happening again?

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk