Youth Unemployment in the European Union

This thesis aspires to be one of the first Czech expert studies approaching the youth unemployment as a major socioeconomic challenge of contemporary Europe, offering a comprehensive overview of the problem. Synthesizing data from the newest studies with the principles of classic economic literature, the thesis positions the discussed topic in the contemporary economic theory. Its theoretical part also introduces the current trends in labour market related to the process of the European economic integration and modern approaches to the labour market policy. A crucial part of this study is a comparison of positions of young adults in German, Spanish and Slovak labour markets. Particularly the illustration of the German model, being a perfect example of the highly competitive continental economies, suggests transfer of some of its good practices into the less successful economies, such as Spain, tackling its extremely rigid labour market, and Slovakia, facing in addition a great inefficiency of its discriminatory school system. The flagship task of this thesis, which is the identification of the EU's potential to tackle the youth unemployment on a supranational level, is concluded in the third chapter. After having introduced the recent steps of the European Union, explained the legal framework of its economic and social competences and delivered an overview of the situation before the elections to the European Parliament in 2014, the study concludes its research objective by stating that substantial steps in supranational politics may actually have a positive impact on the situation in Europe.