“There’s no future here,” he said as he idly stirred his coffee.
More than 5.5 million young people across Europe are unemployed, the European Commission reports, part of what scholars are dubbing a lost generation.
The youth unemployment rate in Greece and Spain has climbed to a staggering 53 percent. That rate is 36 percent in Portugal, 34 percent in Italy and 23 percent in France, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That compares with 15 percent in the United States. Globally, one in eight people under the age of 25 is unemployed.
In the euro zone, the unemployment rate is 26 percent — the highest since the creation of the common currency.
In a report in July, the OECD, a group made up of 34 democratic countries, warned that youths are bearing the burden of the economic crisis in Europe. While many of these young people have their families to fall back on and can often live at home for free, the OECD warned of the lifetime damage — or “scarring effect” — that comes with derailing career plans and earnings potential at such an early age. And the problem isn’t confined to those who lack education or skills. Even those with college degrees are finding themselves stuck without work or in temporary, dead-end jobs.
The situation is chipping away at the foundation of European societies. The high unemployment rate has been linked to rising crime among young people and a higher incidence of depression. Joblessness is bringing down birth rates as these young adults put off starting families. Many youths are leaving their home countries to seek jobs, while others have given up.
European governments have been struggling with how to increase youth employment given the reluctance of businesses to hire at all. Italy is giving modest tax breaks to companies that hire people into the workforce for the first time. Spain has increased its funding to start-up incubators and loans to young people looking to start small businesses. On Wednesday, French President Francois Hollande proposed a more ambitious fix to the country’s unemployment problem: He offered to reimburse companies up to 75 percent of the salary of a new hire 16 to 24 years old for up to three years. Hollande said he hopes to create 100,000 jobs next year in this way, at a cost of $2.9 billion to the government. While it was an unpopular move among economists who have been preaching fiscal discipline, it made Hollande a hero among young people.
But even those who applaud the efforts acknowledge that they are only temporary fixes and that even radical labor-market reform may not be enough to spur employment in the near future.
Loading...
Comments