Tags: Entrepreneurship ecosystems, Youth Unemployment, Next Generation, Labor markets

Since the outbreak of the recent financial crisis we have experienced some of the highest rates of youth unemployment in history. If we want to avoid branding the young people as a “Lost Generation”, we need to act quickly. One important active labor market strategy to solve the youth unemployment crisis is entrepreneurship, helping them turn into job creators rather than job seekers. Entrepreneurship has received significant attention over the past decade with a rapid and often uncoordinated increase in entrepreneurship support programs. These constitute a major part of entrepreneurship ecosystems. In order to build effective entrepreneurship ecosystems, we need to understand the components and assessment indices of such ecosystems. This essay proposes a new conceptual framework describing entrepreneurship ecosystems. The proposed framework is expected to support policymakers and practitioners in setting up new entrepreneurship ecosystems and serve as a basis for future research.

The employment outlook for youth.pdf