The European Court of Auditors has questioned the long-term impact of EU support for youth employment, warning that Brussels lacks clear evidence on whether funded measures help young people stay in work.

The Luxembourg-based watchdog said EU-backed programmes have supported young people into jobs, but remain insufficiently focused on long-term labour-market integration. It also found that inactive young people, who are neither working nor actively seeking work, remain particularly difficult to reach. The findings were published on 4 June 2026 in a special report on cohesion policy support for youth employment.

“Without clearer objectives and better evidence of long-term results, it is difficult to know whether public funds are truly making a difference for young people,” stated Carlo Alberto Manfredi Selvaggi, the ECA member in charge of the audit.

€25bn under scrutiny

Youth unemployment in the EU has fallen from 20% in 2013 to below 12% in recent years. In 2025, around 4.7 million young people were unemployed, representing 11.6% of the labour force aged 15-29.

Since 2014, the EU has allocated around €25bn through cohesion policy to support youth employment, including through the European Social Fund, the Youth Employment Initiative, REACT-EU, the European Social Fund Plus and the Just Transition Fund.

Italy and Spain accounted for almost half of the planned support, receiving 47.5% of the total. Measures included hiring incentives for employers, training, coaching and support to help young people remain in work.

Results gap

The ECA’s main criticism is that the Commission has only patchy information on whether EU support produces durable employment. The auditors found that current result indicators usually track beneficiaries’ employment status only after six months. They said longer-term checks after 12 or 18 months would give a clearer picture of whether young people remain in work after support ends.

The report also found that the operational programmes examined did not clearly define when a young person could be considered successfully integrated into the labour market. That creates the risk that EU funds are spent without sufficiently specific or measurable targets.

The auditors warned that some hiring incentives were not well targeted at the young people who needed them most. Such subsidies can help during downturns, but the ECA said they are more effective when linked to labour-market needs, on-the-job training and safeguards to ensure jobs last after public support ends.

The report found that the incentives examined were not conditional on compulsory training. It also warned of a “deadweight” risk, where public money supports jobs that employers would have created anyway.

Hardest to reach

The ECA also pointed to the changing profile of young people not in employment, education or training, known as Neets. The number of Neets in the EU fell from 11.9 million in 2014 to eight million in 2024. But inactive young people now make up a larger share of the group. Their share rose from 49.7% in 2014 to 62.2% in 2024.

The auditors said this group often faces barriers linked to education, health, social exclusion or lack of skills, making labour-market policy alone insufficient.

Luxembourg near EU average

Luxembourg was not one of the three member states audited in depth, but the report includes EU-wide data.

In 2025, Luxembourg’s youth unemployment rate for those aged 15-29 stood at 11.9%, slightly above the EU average of 11.6%. Its overall unemployment rate was 4.7%, below the EU average of 6.0%.

Spain had the EU’s highest youth unemployment rate at 18.6%, followed by Sweden at 18.2%, Finland at 17.0% and Greece at 16.5%. Malta and Germany had the lowest rates, at 6.1% and 6.2%.

Post-2027 pressure

The ECA recommended stronger monitoring of youth employment funding, better-targeted hiring incentives and more support for inactive young people. Its message is not that EU youth jobs support has failed outright. Rather, the auditors found that after €25bn of spending since 2014, the EU still does not know enough about whether the money creates lasting work.

That evidence gap is likely to weigh on Brussels as it prepares the next generation of cohesion funding after 2027.