14 July 2010 The United Nations labour agency is calling for
urgent action to tackle the crisis of youth unemployment, which
has increased significantly in the wake of the global economic
slowdown and has repercussions for the economy as well as social
cohesion. Young people – those aged 15 to 24 – account for over
22 per cent of the increase in the number of unemployed since
the beginning of 2007 and is now nearly three times the average
level among adults aged 25 and over, according to the
International Labour Organization (ILO). “In nearly all
countries, the increase in youth unemployment has outpaced that
of adults,” the agency says in a new report entitled “Youth
employment in crisis.” Since the start of the crisis, the youth
unemployment rate has risen over 7 percentage points – the
sharpest two year increase on record – and now exceeds 21 per
cent on average in the countries for which data are available,
say Steven Tobin, ILO economist, and Raymond Torres, Director of
the International Institute for La