Maria-Carmen Pantea<\/strong> is Professor at the Social Work\nDepartment, BBU, Romania. Her research interests are in the area of Youth\nStudies, in particular young people\u2019s relationship with work. She is member of\nthe Advisory Group of the Pool of European Youth Researchers of the EU-Council\nof Europe Youth Partnership. Author of\nPrecarity and Vocational Education and Training. Craftsmanship and\nEmployability in Romania, Palgrave (2019). PhD in Sociology (BBU), MA with Merit\nin Gender Studies (Central European University) and MSc in Evidence-Based\nSocial Interventions (Oxford).<\/p> The Reinforced Youth Guarantee (RYG) is a commitment by all\nMember States to ensure that young people between 15 and 29 years old <\/span>receive a good quality offer of employment,\neducation, apprenticeship or traineeship within a period of four months of\nbecoming unemployed or leaving education. The Youth Guarantee was initiated in\n2014 and reinforced in 2020 with several elements of novelty. The presentation\nexplores the role of the RYG in supporting youth employability. It is based on\ndesk research and 17 semi-structured interviews with policy stakeholders,\nincluding representatives of the EU social partners, members of the Public\nEmployment Service network, national RYG coordinators, experts and academics\nfrom 12 countries. The presentation highlights several examples of practice and\nmain implementation challenges as of 2023. It emphasises the importance of the\nRYG as a youth-dedicated initiative and argues that the problems leading youth\npeople in NEET situations are not only economical, but also social. The presentation\ndiscusses the role of more regional\/ local approaches, the capacity of the\npublic employment services to deliver interventions with hard-to-reach young\npeople and tentative implications for youth work as a sector. <\/span>The research was carried out on behalf of Eurofound.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\r\n