The story of misleading rates and omitted demographic changes.The post-crisis youth employment in 33 European countries

Literature review has shown that the demographic dimension of the labour market changes remains generally overlooked. The paper aims at filling the gap. The main question asked in the paper is: what are the long-term consequences of the crisis 2008–2009 for youth labour market in the European countries? In order to answer the question, the changes in youth employment to population ratio in 33 European countries are analysed. Any change in the employment to population ratio is a result of combined demographic and labour market effect. While the demographic changes vary between countries; it is argued that a crosscountry comparative analysis that does not take into account the role of demographic shifts is likely to provide a misleading picture of the labour market conditions.