The difficulties of access to the labor market remains in the post-crisis period, particularly for younger people and for those countries more affected by the crisis. The economic conditions with the precariousness of the labor market and higher unemployment taxes for youth, draws a scenario where the risk of poverty and social exclusion could influence young people and discourage them from social and economic participation, and thus the number of young people not in employment, education, or training (NEETs) will increase. The sustainable development in general and the social sustainability in particular needs to solve this important issue to get a balanced and fair social and economic scenario. In this work, the influence of socio economic variables related to the level of prosperity of the country and social protection as well as the risk of poverty and social exclusion on young NEETs is evaluated based on the EUROSTAT data for the year, 2016, for young people. The method was a structural equations model and the results confirm that the key important factors for explaining the situation of the NEETs’ are more related to poverty and exclusion than to the economic environment. The main conclusion from these results is the importance of implementing some inclusive actions to prevent an increase in the number of young NEETs, and boosting, in this way, a more balanced and sustainable society.

Purpose: Smart cities can be understood as an inclusive space for each and everyone to achieve their best options, within the framework of sustainable development, where institutions boost information and technology environments that help achieve the highest individual and social well-being with the aim of improving the lives of citizens. The youth group (between 15 and 24 years) was severely affected by the crisis. In this paper, youth employability, in relation to the new challenges of smart cities, is analyzed in the EU with the aim of assessing the influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) skills on youth employability.Design/methodology/approach: By means of a mean analysis and structural equation modeling, the differences between the Eurozone and the other countries in the EU is analyzed, as well as the importance of information technologies and the computer skills for increasing youth employability.Findings: The results indicate that awareness of the importance of IT skills is greater in the Eurozone and that computer skills are highly significant to explain the employability of young people.Practical implications: The achieved conclusions point out to the training on computers skills as a key factor for boosting youth employment.Social implications: This work could provide some tools to help policymakers design instruments for increasing youth employment, as well as to provide training mechanisms to obtain the skilled workforce needed for the enterprises that emerged in the environment of smart cities.Originality/value: The main original value of this work is to relate computers skills and the employment rates for youth in the framework of the European Union.

This paper focuses on future job creation in Spain through exports. Our analysis covers direct, induced, or indirect job creation, based on exports output and inputs demanded by exports. We carried out estimations of symmetrical Input-Output Tables (IOT) from 2010 to 2020, as an instrument to analyze the impacts of exports on Spanish economy and employment. The main conclusions deal with Spanish exports within sectorial production chains, the spillover effect of those exports on the domestic economy, and, by extension, their effect on job creation and the balance of payments. Thus, one of the main contributions of this paper, not much explored in current economic literature, is the continuity of the entrepreneurial structure of Spain’s export sector. This entails a dual structure: A very few high-volume exporting companies that create few jobs, and a large amount of small exporting companies that create more jobs. We surmise that this structure will continue to exist over the following years. A conclusion of our investigation is that as Spain’s export sector increases its participation in global production chains, there will be few net jobs created by exported output.