'Lost generation' feared with record youth unemployment: ILO

According to new numbers, youth unemployment rates across Europe just hit new highs.

On 12 August 2010, CNBC reported on data provided by the International Labor Organization that global youth unemployment had hit a record high:

Carlos Hernandez Sonseca studied six years for a bachelor’s degree and couldn’t find a job near his home outside Madrid when he graduated in 2011. Last year, he took an increasingly well-worn path to the U.K. The 27-year-old journalist now washes and chops vegetables eight hours a day at the Vital Ingredient salad bar in London’s financial district, making 260 pounds (US$418) before taxes in a 40-hour week. Thirteen other Spaniards are among a workforce of 17, said manager Francisco “Chico” Baumle, a Brazilian.

DAVOS — Youth unemployment is at staggering levels in the European Union. Every fourth young person between the ages of 15 and 24 is unemployed, amounting to around 5.5 million young adults without a job. In Spain, recent employment data indicate that the number has risen to 60 percent, a new record.   The figures serve as a stark reminder of the fundamental problems within some of Europe’s southern economies.  

GENEVA — The global jobless queue will stretch to more than 200 million people this year, the International Labour Organization said in its annual report on Tuesday, repeating a warning it has made at the start of each of the last six years. The UN jobs watchdog estimates unemployment will rise by 5.1 million this year to more than 202 million, and by another 3 million in 2014, following a rise of 4.2 million in 2012.

Youth unemployment numbers are expected to dip slightly in 2011 compared to a year ago, but current economic uncertainty could spell "many more difficult years ahead" for young people, the UN labour agency warned on Wednesday."The ILO projects a slight decline in youth unemployment to 74.6 million in 2011 from 75.1 million in 2010, and a miniscule decline in the youth unemployument rate from 12.7 to 12.6 percent," said the International Labour Organisation in a report.