Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) | 2014 Support Materials MS

No. The YEI longer-term result indicators are to be recorded 6 months after having left the YEI operation, and they capture only positive results. By contrast, the YG “follow-up” indicators cover both positive and negative outcomes (i.e. participants who are still unemployed and inactive have to be reported as well as those in employment or education/training). In addition, YG follow-up indicators are to be collected 6, 12 and 18 months after the exit.

No. In YG monitoring each start is counted, irrespective of the number of times the same participant has been through the service phase. For YEI monitoring (as with the general ESF monitoring) individuals are counted only once per operation (by updating their existing participation record on re-entry).

Generally, YEI operations support the provision of actual offers. Therefore the exit and entry dates for YG service phase and YEI do not coincide.

The four month time period of the Youth Guarantee cannot be linked to the ESF. This type of time lapse would not necessarily be monitored through the ESF.

An "intervention" as understood for the YEI indicators cannot automatically be linked with the four month period set by the Youth Guarantee (YG) Recommendation for providing a young person with an offer. The indicator refers to the support a person receives through YEI, e.g. a training course. The support can cover activation measures (the so called YG Service), measures which could qualify as a Youth Guarantee offer and/or other types of measures. The ESF Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 1304/2013) does not stipulate a minimum or maximum duration of an intervention or at which point after leaving formal education or becoming unemployed the person should receive or is even entitled to the support (in the sense of YEI support).

No. The intention of these indicators is to measure the fact of completing the YEI intervention; therefore, drop-outs are not included. If a person drops-out because s/he finds a job, this person will be reported under the YEI result indicator relating to participants in employment.

The starting date of the intervention for YEI monitoring is the date when the participant begins activities within a YEI-funded operation. This may be some time after the initial registration date.

Immediate result indicators refer to the situation of each individual participant “upon leaving” the operation, which is the date of exit from the operation (i.e. the last date on which the person was participating in an operation) or up to four weeks after that date. The date of exit may vary for each participant and cannot automatically be taken to be the end of the operation or the envisaged end date of the intervention for this participant. The exit date should be treated as an individual observation that varies between participants. In all cases the exit date of each participant needs to be recorded (whether it coincides or not with the end date of the operation). For further clarification see examples in section 4 of Annex D of the EC Guidance document on Monitoring and Evaluation.

Note that there is a difference between "complete the YEI supported intervention" and "upon leaving". The completion of attendance is linked to the participant’s individual duration of stay in the operation and not to the duration of the operation or project overall. E.g. an operation runs for two years and during this time runs the same course four times. The project/operation will be completed once all four courses are done. A person will only plan to participate in one of the four courses and not in all four. Hence the completion date with regard to the participant cannot be linked to the completion date of the operation or project. So the completion in this case would be when the person completed the one course as initially scheduled. Therefore the word “intervention” has been chosen and not operation or project for this type of indicator.

Yes. Results should only be collected once a participant has completely left an operation.

The YEI is to be included in the performance framework as it has not been excluded from it in Article 22 (1) CPR. As set out in Art. 4(1) of the Commission Implementing Regulation on the Performance framework (Regulation (EU) No 215/2014):

“The bodies preparing programmes shall record information on the methodologies and criteria applied to select indicators for the performance framework to ensure that corresponding milestones and targets comply with the conditions set out in paragraph 3 of Annex II of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 for all programmes and priorities supported by the ESI Funds, as well as the specific allocation to the Youth Employment Initiative ('YEI') as referred to in Article 16 of Regulation (EU) No 1304/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, subject to the exceptions set out in paragraph 1 of Annex II of that Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013.”.

The resources for the YEI are, however, excluded for the purpose of calculating the performance reserve (Art. 20 of the Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013). For the YEI the milestones set for 2018 correspond in value to the target for 2023 as the YEI is frontloaded (the YEI specific allocation is committed in 2014 and 2015).

The ESF Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 1304/2013) stipulates that the YEI should support “young persons not in employment, education or training (NEET), who are unemployed or inactive. Persons considered as registered unemployed according to national definitions are always included (even if they do not fulfil all three of these criteria). Although registration in the employment service is not an absolute precondition for considering a participant as unemployed in general, for YEI participants registration to the employment service is required. As stated in a note* circulated to Managing Authorities, “as a first step each potential YEI participant (whether unemployed or inactive) should be registered at the Public Employment Service (PES) or equivalent body, including e.g. private providers acting on behalf of the PES and performing individual profiling and placement activities for the unemployed”.

*Clarifications by the Commission services following the YEI Seminar on 11 July 2014 – note circulated to all Managing Authorities on 4 August 2014.

All result indicators (common and YEI, immediate and longer-term) measure changes in the situation of participants compared to their situation before joining an ESF funded operation. It may help to consider the chronological steps of a young person taking part in a YEI intervention:

1. Young person becomes unemployed.

2. Young person benefits from YEI supported intervention for a fixed period and completes the planned activities: job placement/training/scholarship/counselling/other. This person would be recorded under the immediate result indicator “unemployed participants who complete the YEI supported intervention”.

3. When the YEI support ends (after the fixed time period mentioned in step 2 above has elapsed), this person:

1. is again unemployed;

2. finds a new job/training/other opportunity; or

3. gets an offer for employment/training.

Options b) and c) would be recorded under YEI immediate result indicators “unemployed participants who are in education/training, […] upon leaving” or “unemployed participants who receive an offer of employment [….] upon leaving”. Note that it is possible for the same participant to experience b) and c) simultaneously and thus both results are recorded.

For practical guidance and examples on recording YEI result indicators see section 5.9 of Annex D of the EC Guidance document on Monitoring and Evaluation.

Yes. All three YEI immediate result indicators are possible results for one and the same person within the same operation. However, it is important to stick to the requirement that the result indicators for "participant who receive an offer ..." and for "participant in education/training ..." only refer to results that materialise "upon leaving" the operation, or within four weeks of that date, and not later.

For practical guidance and examples on recording YEI result indicators see section 5.9 of Annex D of the EC Guidance document on Monitoring and Evaluation.

The common YEI indicators capturing offers do not contain any reference to quality. So, all offers which are in line with the definition of an offer (see Annex C2 of the EC guidance) should be recorded. The assessment of the quality of offers is a subject for evaluation. Please see the guidance on YEI evaluation.

Data for all indicators have to be collected and reported for each operation separately. Therefore, data for output and result indicators should be collected and entered for operation A and for operation B separately. 

Yes. Information for the YEI immediate and longer-term result indicators (listed under Annex II of the ESF regulation) should be collected. This information concerns the following:

• completion of the intervention upon leaving
• receipt of an offer upon leaving
• educational situation six months after leaving (only for representative samples)
• participants in self-employment (only for representative samples)

Note that more detailed information about the types of education/training programme will be required for particular YEI immediate and longer-term indicators, as they refer specifically to “continued education, training programmes leading to a qualification, an apprenticeship or a traineeship”, and not to any form of formalised education/training.

There are no specific output indicators for YEI monitoring, only YEI specific result indicators. The output indicators required are the common output indicators listed under Annex I of the ESF Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 1304/2013), which apply to all ESF supported operations, including the YEI.

The ESF Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 1304/2013) sets out the following requirements for YEI reporting (Art. 19(3)):  Indicator data transmitted shall relate to values for the indicators set out in Annexes I and II to this Regulation and, where applicable, to programme specific indicators. In other words, investments benefitting from YEI funding should report all common indicators listed under Annex I and all YEI indicators listed under Annex II.

Note that the reporting schedule for YEI operations differs from that of regular operations: all YEI indicators have to be reported annually already as from 2015. Representative samples of participants in YEI funded operations need to be selected in order to report on YEI longer-term result indicators on an annual basis (rather than just twice as for the ESF common indicators under Annex I).

For more information, see section 3.1.4 of the EC Guidance on Monitoring and Evaluation "Specific provisions for Common YEI indicators".