Of the young unemployed Romanians aged 20 to 34, 37% were ready to change their place of residence inside the country for a job, according to the EU’s statistical office Eurostat using data from the 2016 European Labor Force Survey.

The same percentage of young people willing to relocate for work is found in Germany, and is the highest in the EU for young people ready to move inside the country. The Czech Republic and Ireland, both at 35%, come next.

The highest shares of those ready to relocate to another EU country were reported in Estonia and Croatia (both 26%) and Slovenia (25%). The share of young unemployed ready to move outside the EU is highest in Sweden (34%), followed by Spain and Finland (28%) and France (27%).

In most EU member states, the share of those ready to move inside the country is larger than the share of those ready to relocate to another EU country. In eight countries, the preference displayed is for moving within the EU. It is the case of Bulgaria where the share of those ready to move to another EU country is double that of those ready to move inside Bulgaria (12% ready to move within Bulgaria and 23% to relocate to another member state). In Slovakia, 14% were ready to relocate within the country and 23% to another EU state.

At the opposite end, 73% of the unemployed aged 20-34 in Malta are not ready to move for a job, 69% in the Netherlands and 68% in Cyprus.

Overall, 50% of unemployed people aged 20-34 in the EU are reluctant to change their place of residence for a job, 21% are ready to move for a job but only in the same country, whereas 12% would consider moving to another EU Member State. A total of 17% would be ready to move for a job outside EU.

The young unemployed with a high level of education were more ready to move for work (23% ready to move in the same country and 16% ready to relocate inside the EU) than young unemployed with a medium education level (20% and 11% respectively) or young unemployed with a low level of education (21% and 10%).

The European Labor Force Survey (LFS) is a large sample survey among private households in Europe. The topic of the 2016 ad hoc module was young people on the labor market.

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editor@romania-insider.com