EURYO Policy Brief: Future employment opportunities and changes in rural youth labour markets

Rural youth employment remains a critical and unresolved challenge across the European Union. Despite EU efforts, rural youth remain systematically disadvantaged, facinga higher risk of social exclusion and fewer high quality career paths than their urban counterparts. Young people living in rural areas have weaker labour market opportunities than their urban peers, including higher risks of becoming NEET, limited access to education and training, constrained mobility, and fewer quality jobs. These disadvantages contribute to territorial inequalities and accelerate rural depopulation, undermining social cohesion and long-term development. Artificial intelligence (AI), digitalization, and the green transition create new opportunities in rural areas, such as precision agriculture, renewable energy, and digital services. However, they also carry significant risks in “thin” rural labour markets, where job displacement is harder to absorb, and alternative employers are scarce.The persistent higher youth unemployment in rural areas, despite the rollout of the Reinforced Youth Guarantee (RYG), suggests that the issue is not a lack of political will, but a lack of territorial sensitivity. Current measures assume a density of employers and transport links that simply do not exist in ‘thin’ rural markets. Without an impact evaluation that accounts for geography, the RYG risks becoming an urban success that inadvertently subsidizes rural depopulation.This policy brief combines EU-level statistical evidence with insights from participatory workshops conducted between April and May 2025 in a selection of European countries under the COST Innovators Grant (IG18213) “Future Youth Information for Rural Areas” (FYI-R).