Youth Unemployment Creating A Lost Generation

     Today is the first in a five-part series looking at the youth unemployment crisis that's impacting young adults around the world. I'm not an economist or an expert in job trends and will not be discussing the cause of the crisis itself. Instead I'll spend the next five days talking about the climate which has been created because of the high levels of unemployment and underemployment as a result of the crisis. I'll begin this discussion by looking at the impact of the crisis on young adults and the creation of a "Lost Generation", an argument which was presented by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

     According to an article posted on the Huffington Post website, written by the Canadian Press, the OECD is urging policy-makers in Europe and the U.S. to take "urgent action" to prevent the jobless crisis from becoming a permanent problem for the countries. This warning was given in a new report that studied employment in the post-recession years. The report is broken down into four chapters which focus on the labour market in its current state; as well as how the labour market was impacted by the recession and what green growth could mean for workers. These chapters are preceded by an editorial which discusses the role of labour market policy in achieving a sustainable recovery.

     Angel Gurria, the OECD's Secretary-General, said in a release of the report on Tuesday that the economic recovery has not resulted in "sufficient employment opportunities." Gurria went on to say that countries that were able to do so needed to "implement additional fiscal and monetary measures to support demand and boost job creation." These warnings aren't given lightly considering that youth unemployment in the 34-country area covered by the OECD is at 16.2 per cent.

A young man enters the Labor Force Organization's office in Athens. The graffiti reads: 'Snow or rain, the jobless are always hungry. (Associated Press File)

     Canada is presented in the report as having an optimistic future for the youth looking for work. The OECD states that unemployment in the country sits at 7.2 per cent, the OECD average is 7.9 per cent. The 7.2 per cent is projected to decline by late 2013 to 6.4 per cent. However, according to Francis Fong, an economist for TD Bank, Canada's job market may not be so optimistic:

Youth unemployment is still at a very elevated level in Canada. The competitive challenges this generation faces is very unique, they are competing with graduates from (other countries), and in addition, they have all these older workers getting back into the labour force.

     In March, Fong reported that of the 430,000 jobs lost during the recession, more than half were in the 15-24 age category and almost none of the jobs have been recovered. In fact, according to Statistics Canada unemployment has risen by almost 27,000 since March. In the OECD area there are still 47 million people unemployed, with some countries being worse than others.

The OECD is urging governments to take swift action to address stubbornly high unemployment, warning the slow recovery is creating conditions that could scar youth and some workers the rest of their lives. (Shutterstock photo).

     Paul Wiseman, a journalist for the Associated Press, wrote that youth unemployment is nearly 53 per cent in Greece, 51.5 per cent in Spain and 35 per cent in Italy. Germany seems to be the only country unscathed, where the unemployment for youth is only 7.9 per cent. Wiseman's article mirrors the Canadian Press story's concerns about the creation of a "Lost Generation":

Economists fear that years of unemployment could produce a European version of Japan's "Lost Generation" - the young adults who looked in vain for jobs in the 1990s and today find themselves permanently locked out of good careers. The longer adults stay unemployed, the longer they contribute nothing to economic growth, consume government aid and increase the risk of social unrest.

      Young Invincibles is a national organization that represents the interests of 18 to 34 year-olds by making sure their perspective is heard whenever decisions are being made that impact that age group. They recently released a report that studies the long-term youth jobs gap and what it means for America. In the report they claim that even under optimistic conditions, it could take up to a decade for this generation to regain the ground lost from the recession. The report also estimates that the economy is missing 2.7 million youth jobs that would exist had the recession never occurred. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the youth labour force will never regain its pre-recession form.

     The process of rebuilding is being tackled in many different ways. The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is a nonprofit organization that promotes entrepreneurship as a means to overcome youth unemployment and underemployment. Their mission is to "spark an entrepreneurial revolution in America and help rebuild to economy in the process. Scott Gerber, a writer for the YEC, wrote an article which discusses 43 troubling facts about the youth unemployment crisis. The story is an important resource when trying to understand what today's youth are facing.