In light of the impact of the recent negative developments in the labour market on young people, EU Member States have in recent years been actively engaged in designing and implementing policy measures targeted at young people. In the context of its 2011 work programme, Eurofound carried out an evaluation of the effectiveness of selected policy measures introduced by Member States to improve the employability of young people. The full results of this study will be published later in the year. This short document summarises the strengths and weaknesses of youth guarantee schemes identified in the research. Given that Scandinavian countries are pioneers of this type of policy, this paper focuses in particular on youth guarantee initiatives which have been introduced in Finland and Sweden.