Launched in September 2010, the Youth on the Move initiative is part of the Europe 2020 package of economic reform - and it puts young people at the centre of the EU's strategy to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in the European Union.

High youth unemployment rates and large numbers of early school leavers are two sides of the same problem identified by the European Commission. Five million young Europeans are looking for a job. Many of them will miss opportunities because they lack the right qualifications or experience. In addition, young people have been hit particularly hard by the recent social and economic crisis.

Youth on the Move aims to increase their chances of finding a job by making it easier for them to gain the knowledge, skills and experience they need to make their first job a reality. It proposes a number of 'key actions' aimed at making education and training more relevant to young people's needs - including through support to volunteering and various forms of vocational training - and at encouraging more of them to take advantage of EU grants to study or train in another country. This will enhance young people's employability and access to the labour market.
The Youth on the Move strategy includes the following targeted actions:

• Launch of a dedicated Youth on the Move website, providing a single point of access to information about opportunities to study or gain work experience abroad, including advice about EU grants and individual rights. This will build on existing initiatives, such as the Portal on Learning Opportunities throughout the European Space (PLOTEUS).
• A pilot project 'Your first EURES job' will provide advice, job search and financial support to young job-seekers who want to work abroad and to companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises. The project will be managed by EURES, the network of European Public Employment Services, and will be operational in 2011.
• A mobility scoreboard will benchmark and measure progress in removing legal and technical obstacles to learning mobility.
• The Commission is examining, in co-operation with the European Investment Bank, the creation of a European student lending facility to support students who wish to study or train abroad.
• It will publish the findings of a study to test the feasibility of a multidimensional global university ranking system, to present a more complete and realistic picture of higher education performance than existing rankings.
• It also plans to develop a Youth on the Move card, which would offer benefits and discounts for young people.
• A new European Vacancy Monitor will provide an intelligence system on labour market demand across Europe for job-seekers and employment advisors. The launch is planned later this year.
• The Commission's new European Progress Micro-finance Facility will provide financial support to help young entrepreneurs set up or develop their businesses.
• It will encourage Member States to introduce a youth guarantee to ensure all young people are in a job, training or work experience within four months of leaving school.
• The Commission will propose a European skills passport, based on Europass (European online CV), to allow skills to be recorded in a transparent and comparable way. The launch is scheduled for autumn 2011.