“Precious work experience will not cover the bills”

It is important to get experience. One absolutely needs experience. Who will hire you if you haven’t got professional experience? Experience, experience, experience… Work experience is of high value. Of course, it can be, but bills, too, can literally be of high value. And experience will not cover them.

The European Commission dedicated 2022 to young people. Let us have the European Year of Youth, it said. Great! It is right to put young people at the heart of European policy-making. This should be the case even in the absence of the pandemic, which has robbed them of so many opportunities.

We talk a lot about young people in the European Parliament. A considerable number of documents, resolutions, reports, acts and pieces of legislation are adopted in this regard. During this plenary session, we voted on the report entitled Empowering European youth – post-pandemic employment and social recovery. This is precisely because of the designation of this year as the European Year of Youth.

Basically, the document is a very good starting point for young people. It addresses the importance of strengthening European youth, investing in them, developing specific programmes to tackle youth unemployment and promoting new solutions for their social inclusion. It offers young people opportunities aimed at facilitating labour market inclusion, developing skills for the future, improving integration and access to education.

Great! But unfortunately, the report contains a huge black mark. The unpaid (!!!) traineeships. This is what I am referring to in the first paragraph.

The issue of unpaid traineeships has been on the EU’s agenda for many years now, but it has never been resolved once and for all. This is largely due to the proponents of the laissez-faire principle and of economic (neo)liberalism, who argue that the state cannot and should not interfere with the economy. The proponents of unpaid traineeships justify their position by arguing — listen to this — that young people willingly choose this form of work. 🤨

Such people seem to regard every individual in the jobs market as equal, but at the same time they are deliberately oblivious to the obvious inequalities between them.

The fact is that during their education – and later, during their first job search – young people are placed in a very uncomfortable position. They are forced to do unpaid traineeships through forms of soft coercion. Either because their educational programme requires them to undertake a traineeship in order to graduate successfully, or because, when entering the labour market, potential employers require them to have work experience before they can even get their first job. A paradox in all its glory.

Traineeships are not a choice. Fifty per cent of all young people in the EU undertake unpaid traineeships. And as we know that doing a traineeship is in reality doing the work of a regular employee, this half of young people are deprived of their rights and taken advantage of by employers.

What is more, unpaid traineeships perpetuate the cycle of “privilege for the privileged”. Why? Because it is only middle- and upper-class people who do not have to worry about rent, food, transport and all other living costs who can afford to undertake unpaid traineeships. But if a student cannot afford to work without being paid, they are automatically deprived of the skills that would enable them to get a better job in the future. This puts them in a fundamentally unequal position. So much for the argument of equality of individuals in the labour market.

Young people MUST have equal opportunities. And a PAID traineeship is a step in the right direction.

During this term, we have already taken an important step towards abolishing unpaid traineeships in October 2020, when we voted on this in the context of the Youth Guarantee Resolution. At that time, I was proud to see 574 votes in favour of ending unpaid traineeships. Today, however, I am deeply disappointed. Firstly, because the report allowed unpaid traineeships in the first place, and even more so because the amendment calling for their ban was not supported in yesterday’s vote.

Absolutely unbelievable. It is utterly shameful that we have taken such a retrograde step, particularly in the current situation.

If years are being dedicated to the young generation, then we must prove all the more that we care. This time we have failed. But I believe that we — the ones who REALLY care — will succeed one day.

— IRENA