Definition: the proportion of young people (aged 15 to 29 years) who meet the following two conditions: (a) they are not employed and (b) have not attended any training or education during the four weeks prior to the interview. The data come from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). Statistics Belgium organises this EU-harmonised survey in Belgium and makes the results available, in particular to Eurostat. The survey methodology was reviewed in 2017. Comparison of the 2017 data with previous years should be done with caution. Due to, among other things, changes in the definition of unemployment following a new European framework regulation, the data from 2021 onwards cannot be directly compared with those of 2020. From now on, persons who are temporarily unemployed for more than three months will no longer be counted as employed but as unemployed or inactive, depending on the answers to the questions on job search and availability.

The data used here come from Eurostat, which publishes detailed and comparable results between EU Member States. Since these data are based on surveys, a margin of uncertainty should be taken into account. This margin of uncertainty increases as the indicator is calculated on smaller sub-populations. The confidence intervals for these data are available on request from Statistics Belgium.

Goal: the proportion of youth not in education, employment or training should not exceed 8.6% in 2030.

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 include target 8.6: "By 2020 substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training".

Belgium’s recovery and resilience plan endorsed the European target from the European Pillar of Social Rights: the proportion of youth not in education, employment or training should not exceed 9% of people aged 15 to 29 years by 2030. This target was further refined for Belgium to 8.6% by 2030 (European Commission, 2022; Federal Public Service Social Security, 2023).

International comparison: in the European Union, the share of young people not in employment, education or training, which had been decreasing since 2002, went up from 2008 to 2013 in the wake of the economic and financial crisis. From 2013 onwards, the decrease starts again, except in 2020. Over the entire period, the decline is slower than in Belgium. Since 2005, Belgium has been below the European average. When Member States are divided into three groups, Belgium is part of the group with average performance in 2022 and outperforms the European average. In that year, the Netherlands ranked first with 4.2% and Romania last with 19.8%.

UN indicator: the selected indicator corresponds to indicator 8.6.1 - Proportion of young people (aged 15 to 24) not in employment, education or training.

Sources

• General

  • SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals: United Nations (2015), Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, document A/RES/70/1.

  • Indicators: United Nations (2017), Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, document A/RES/71/313.

  • UN Sustainable Development: https://sdgs.un.org/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

  • UN Sustainable Development Goal indicators website: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

• Specific

  • Belgium (2021), Plan National pour la Reprise et la Résilience, https://dermine.belgium.be/sites/default/files/articles/FR (consulted on 05/10/2022).

  • European commission (2021), The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, p. 6; https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:b7c08d86-7cd5-11eb-9ac9-01aa75ed71a1.0001.02/DOC_1&format=PDF (consulted on 05/10/2022)

  • European Commission (2022), The European Pillar of Social Rights: state of play on the national target for 2030, https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=89&furtherNews=yes&newsId=10299 (consulted on 23/11/2023).

  • Federal Public Service Social Security (2023), The evolution of the social situation and social protection in Belgium 2021, https://socialsecurity.belgium.be/sites/default/files/content/docs/en/publications/silc/silc-analysis-social-situation-and-protection-belgium-2021-en.pdf (consulted on 23/11/2023).

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