RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

Mobility and youth employment in the EU. Addressing Romanian students’ perspectives… 415
language (Kahanec & Fabo, 2013). Youths’ mobility can contribute to lowering unemployment
rates and acquiring intercultural job experience. However, the benefits of work mobility
can also be reduced if the youths have to go back to precarious economic conditions in
their native countries after short-term contracts (O’Reilly et al., 2015).
The EU promoted and invested in policies to support initiatives for solving the youth unemployment
as well as for diminishing the job matching issues or disparities. Among the EU programs
aiming at driving down youth unemployment, helping young Europeans to find a job
or traineeship in other EU countries, strengthening the quality and supply of apprenticeships
in Europe or at increasing the youth employment rate, we mention some of the most recent
ones: Your first EURES Job (2014) – a mobility scheme aiming at helping young people up
to 35 years old to find a job or an internship in another member state; European Alliance for
Apprenticeships (2013) – a platform aiming at bringing together governments and key stakeholders
to improve the offer of apprenticeships in Europe; Youth Employment Package (2012)
– measures to reduce the levels of youth unemployment through offers of jobs, continued education
and training; Youth Opportunities Initiative (2011) – measures addressed to help graduates
acquire work experience, especially through the use of the European Social Fund, Youth
on the Move (2010) – program aiming at improving youths’ education and employability.
All these policy initiatives on education and employment for young people build on theoretical
premises that stress the growing importance of mobility for personal and professional
fulfilment, social cohesion, economic growth and higher quality of human resources (Papatsiba,
2009; Bracht et al., 2006; Cross, 1981). At the level of EU-28, there are over 5 million
unemployed youths, this aspect indicating a high need to restore the growth and employment
rates. In this context, EU should propose and develop plans to improve mobility, education
and employability of young people. In what concerns the educational area, the Europe 2020
Strategy has the target of diminishing the early school-leaving rates from 15% to 10%, and
of increasing the number of higher education graduates from 31% to 40%. Another target is
to reduce the risk of poverty for 20 million people and increase the employment rate to 75%
(The EU’s youth initiatives: focus on education and employment, 2014).
Considering the high rates of unemployed youths especially after the economic crisis, the
risks associated with finding jobs in another country such as difficulty of achieving recognition
for previous education and work experience, language fluency, unfamiliar social contexts
or country-specific requirements, the high acceptance of lower-skilled jobs, EU should
strive more to reduce disparities and risks related to work mobility. The European programs
and initiatives could also encourage entrepreneurial initiatives at the EU level and a greater
cohesion among European citizens.
Intercultural mobility and employment. The Erasmus program
Mobility and internationalization of higher education help improve youths’ skills and chances
of employability, the Erasmus program being a key component in supporting this process (The
Erasmus Impact Study, 2014). The study indicates a link between the intercultural competences
and employability skills. Another aspect of internationalization in Europe is creating a European
identity embroidering on the idea of European citizenship and slowly constituting the
European Union as a political entity. In this regard, (academic) mobility programs in general
and Erasmus in particular are increasingly perceived as catalysts for a common sense of Europeanness
among the participants (Fligstein, 2008; Rubio et al., 2002). Some of the key com-