Young Polish school leavers entering the labour market need high quality job-search assistance, training and other employment support programmes. Although the situation has improved markedly compared to ten years ago, youth in Poland still face a relatively high risk of unemployment. And too many of them experience spells of unemployment that last more than a year. The current economic recession will probably erode some of the progress achieved during the past decade. It is equally important to ensure that young people are covered by adequate benefit schemes with strong incentives to seek and secure work. The provision of income support and services to help youth find a job should ideally follow a “mutual obligations” principle, where recipients are required to participate in an active job search or training or employment programmes in return for compensation.