One of the priorities for moving European rural youth forward is to create sustainable and high-quality rural jobs accessible to young people. Rural youth unemployment rates are higher than the average throughout the EU and rural employment opportunities tend to be relatively limited, with a prevalence of seasonal jobs.   

Supporting youth employment can help revitalise rural areas, prevent depopulation and strengthen rural communities. Remote work, co-working, social farming or start-ups represent a ‘window of opportunity’, particularly for young people. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the reinforced Youth Guarantee by Member States and a variety of EU programmes offer multiple and significant resources to support rural youth employment, and these opportunities need to be better understood and applied in a targeted and coordinated way. 

This new EU CAP Network Thematic Group, facilitated by the CAP Implementation Contact Point, will take a holistic approach in exploring the mechanisms to support employment of rural young people, considering developments on the rural job market, ongoing global trends, but also relevant policies and available tools, initiatives and funds.

The main objective of this TG is to explore various approaches to developing sustainable and high-quality rural jobs accessible to young people, and thereby inform relevant policies.