Youth Unemployment Crisis and Germany

     To what degree did the recession create the youth unemployment crisis? Clearly, the recession has a negative impact on the number of jobs that are available due to layoffs and closures. Also the individuals applying to those jobs are both new graduates with limited experience and established professionals reentering the workforce, further limiting availability. Another correlation between the recession and the unemployment crisis is the longer period of time that potential retirees are staying at their positions. Yet, these are issues that countries around the world are dealing with but not every country is failing as completely as Greece or Spain. Even the U.S. and Canada, while doing considerably better than the aforementioned countries, have nothing to brag about. Germany, however, has managed to outperform every other country in youth employment. So what is the variable that allows for some countries to successfully employ their youth while others can not?