It was recently announced that the EU has launched a youth unemployment plan to tackle youth unemployment in the 27 EU member countries. This youth opportunities initiative promises to create 370,000 work placements across the EU. It proposed a youth guarantee to put young people in work, study or training within four months of leaving school. The commission states that youth unemployment costs around 20 billion euros per week or one percent of the entire EU's economic output. However critics say that the initiative will not benefit the UK, suggesting that youth unemployment was a problem before the economic turmoil, and will not be solved by reallocating funds.