YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION LABOUR MARKET

In an era of aging of the European Union population, it is crucial to take care of human resources in various spheres of their life. The potential of young people is particularly important, as their economic activity creates the basis of maintaining the European welfare state model. However, the labour market situation of young people is difficult. Moreover, the phenomena, which have recently attracted increasing attention, are remaining for young people without employment, education or training (NEET). The occurrence of NEET's resources is harmful at micro level - due to pauperization of European households as well as for the whole economy due to insufficient usage of human resources. The paper aim is to compare how the situation of young people differs in the European Union labour markets.The paper was based on both the desk-research of literature as well as the analysis of selected economic indicators of young people (aged 15-29 years). The indicator analysis was made through the usage of cluster analysis (Ward's method and k-means method). The data was gathered from the databases of Eurostat. The selected indicators determine the labour market situation of young people in the EU countries and they are derived from two years – 2006 and 2014.Ward's and k-means methods allowed for dividing the EU countries into three groups. It occurred that the groups in 2006 have a completely different composition of countries than in 2014, which was mainly determined by crisis influences on the labour markets as well as directions of conducted reforms. Additionally, the k-means method allowed for comparison of selected groups on the basis of chosen variables and determination of countries with the best and the worst situation of young people.