Call for €30m to tackle 20% youth jobless rate

The National Youth Council of Ireland has called for a €30 million package to tackle the high rate of youth unemployment after EU figures showed almost a fifth of young Irish people are not in education, work or training.

The NYCI, which represents youth organisations working with more than 380,000 young people nationwide, cited the latest data from the EU’s statistics agency, Eurostat, which shows the percentage of young people in Ireland aged 20 to 24 who are exclusively in employment in 2015 has plummeted from 54.6% in 2006 to 37.8% last year.

The figures also show that the number of young people not in education, employment or training was almost a fifth at 19.7% compared to 11.9% in 2006.