Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Youth Unemployment in the Eurozone - Will it lead to further unrest?


With all of the youth-inspired unrest in the United Kingdom over the past few days, I thought that it would be interesting to look at the social issues facing young people in the U.K., particularly their employment prospects and compare their issues to those facing the youth of other EU and extra-EU nations.  

In the second quarter of 2011, youth unemployment in the United Kingdom fell to 19.7 percent with 917,000 unemployed 16 to 24 year olds.  This is a drop of 0.7 percentage points from the previous quarter when there were 959,000 unemployed youth, the highest since record-keeping began in 1992.  The statistics also showed that there were 75,000 youth that had not held a job for two years, an increase of 43 percent from a year earlier.  As we saw in the case of Egypt, perhaps at least some of the actions of young Brits over the past few days is related to a sense of hopelessness rather than just being completely attributable to hooliganism.

Here is a look at some interesting youth employment statistics compared to national unemployment statistics for several countries around the world:

United Kingdom 16 to 24 years of age: 19.7 percent compared to 7.7 percent nationally.

France 15 to 24 years of age: 22.8 percent compared to 9.7 percent nationally.

Greece 15 to 24 year olds: 43.1 percent compared to 15.8 percent nationally.

Canada 15 to 24 year olds: 14.1 percent compared to 7.2 percent nationally.

United States 16 to 19 year olds: 25.0 percent compared to 9.1 percent nationally.

Here is a graph comparing the total unemployment rate for the EU-27, the EU, Japan and the United States:


Here is a graph showing the rise in youth unemployment across the Eurozone over the past decade:


Here is a chart showing the actual statistics for the year 2009 showing how much higher unemployment for those EU citizens under the age of 25 is when compared to unemployment for those between the ages of 25 and 74 years:


The youth unemployment rate in the EU-27 has been two to three times the rate for the total population over the last 10 years.  That cannot help but lead to trouble over the long term as a sense of hopelessness overtakes the optimism of one's early teen years.

Perhaps, in some way, this explains (but does not excuse) the anger on the streets of the United Kingdom just as it did in Egypt earlier this spring.  The social contrast between those who are elected to run the governments of Europe and North America and European and North American young adults is profound.  In recent history, the divide between our society's "ruling class" and the have nots has rarely been wider and deeper.  Anger towards the system is sometimes directed toward unexpected targets and it is that anger that appears to be contagious.

In light of the likely implementation of widespread government austerity programs as a "Hail Mary" approach to balancing decades of fiscal mismanagement, it will be interesting to see where mob anger strikes next.

7 comments:

  1. By twenty-twelve the world shall be burned asunder in flames without number.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It might be due to my own system but the "EU-27, the EU, Japan and the United States" graph is missing the graph legend. No big deal really but just in case you didn't know..

    ReplyDelete
  3. Solid post all-around. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You have to ask yourselves, what is the point in raising the UK State Retirement Age when the only REAL effects it will have is for us to be seeing more, and more of our Younger Generation out of any chances of getting their feet onto ANY REAL Work - Force Training Scheme, for indeed considering that today more, and more again of the already established Work - Force are themselves being made Redundant before they reach 60 Years of Age, then there is an urgent requirement to be seeing the UK's State Retirement Age to be "CUT" down to around 58 Years of Age, so that those that want to take an Early UK State Retirement Pension can indeed do so.

    This IS the ONLY way to allow anyone within our Younger 16 TO 24 Year Old Generation to become able to replace someone that is prepared to leave the Work - Force, thus by allowing Worker's within any Company to move up the Chain while still taking on "New" Apprentices needed to fill the gap that becomes vacant at the bottom end of the Company - Chain.

    The false arguement for not Retiring anyone on a State - Pension at 58 Years of Age, some say is down to having to meet this Cost at Tax - Payer's expense.
    However, considering that we are INSTEAD having to pay out our Younger Generation State Dole Money in some form, while they remain totally un-trained for when they will finally parhaps have to go into the Workplace one day, and further considering we are also now seeing a rise in Middle - Age Unemployment, any Cost of Retiring anyone early is Cost Nutual while having to spend State Cash on turn - style short - term Training Programmes that just sees our Younger Generation returning to being Unemployed again after doing a 6 months Cheap - Labour Course just to keep them temporary off of the UK Unemployment Register.

    ReplyDelete
  5. For example LBJ is hugely underweighted due to the fact Medicare and Medicaid
    How can we wow buy goldthrough the internet? We must make it safe and trust those people who buy our's products, and we can Buy WOW Gold euof other games.

    ReplyDelete
  6. In light of the likely implementation of widespread government austerity programs as aLOL Elo Boost
    Buy League of Legends Boost

    ReplyDelete
  7. I am confident that this rate have changed by now. It's been 2 years.

    ReplyDelete