Challenging Youth Unemployment Through International Mobility

Abstract

Youth unemployment is a challenge in many European countries – especially since the financial crises. Young people face difficulties in the transition from education into employment. This article focuses on young mobile Europeans from six countries (Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Norway, Romania and Spain). The research question is whether and to which extent international mobility has an impact on employability and therefore reduces youth unemployment. By using a cluster analysis of personal adaptability, social and human capital and career identity, the importance of mobility experiences for employability is analysed in a recent dataset of 5,272 young (formerly) mobile respondents. Youth mobility is established as a strong characteristic for the employability cluster. Mobility is however not the long-term aim of most of the mobile young people, since most of the mobiles choose to return to their home countries after one or more stays abroad.