Don’t trust anybody over 30: youth unemployment and Okun’s law in CEE countries

In recent years youth unemployment rates across Europe soared, causing the European Commission to take actions through initiatives to counter this development. This article examines youth unemployment development in selected CEE countries and compares them to the EU-15. We use Okun’s law and estimate age and country specific Okun coefficients for five different age cohorts. Our results show that young people display much higher Okun coefficients than their older peers, thus confirming that young people are more prone to macroeconomic shocks. This result might be a justification for additional governmental intervention and active labour market policies favouring young people.