“Ironically, only in developed economies are youth unemployment rates expected to fall in the coming years, but this follows the largest increase in youth unemployment among all regions since the start of the crisis,” said Ekkehard Ernst, the lead author of the UN International Labour Organization (ILO)’s paper, entitled Global Employment Outlook: Bleak Labour Market Prospects for Youth.

The paper forecasts the youth unemployment rate in developed economies dropping gradually, from 17.5 per cent this year to 15.6 per cent in 2017 – far higher than the rate of 12.5 per cent registered in 2007, before the crisis struck.

Much of the projected decline in the jobless rate is not due to improvements in the labour market, but rather to large numbers of young people dropping out of the labour force altogether due to discouragement, ILO noted in a news release, adding that these discouraged youth are not counted among the unemployed.

According to ILO, young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults, and over 75 million youth worldwide are looking for work. The labour agency has previously warned of a “scarred” generation of young workers facing a dangerous mix of high unemployment, increased inactivity and precarious work in developed countries, as well as persistently high working poverty in the developing world.

The ILO paper notes that the global youth unemployment rate will reach 12.9 per cent by 2017 – up 0.2 percentage points from forecasts for 2012. Youth unemployment is projected to be highest in North Africa and the Middle East, with a 25 per cent rate forecast over the next years.

The labour agency notes that even in countries with early signs of a jobs recovery and where new vacancies are opening up, many unemployed youth still find it difficult to land a job. For example, a construction worker whose job was lost during the housing bust might not have the skills needed in sectors that are hiring.

“This leads to discouragement and rising NEET rates (“neither in employment, education or training”) among young people,” said Mr. Ernst, who also heads ILO’s Employment Trends Unit. “Schemes using employment guarantees and an emphasis on training could help get jobseekers off the street and into useful activities, providing a safeguard against further economic stress.”

According to the paper, such youth guarantees can come at very limited cost, less than half a per cent of gross domestic product among European countries.

“In times of constrained public finances, this may seem like a large additional burden, but it will be less than the additional costs that come from young unemployed people permanently losing touch with the labour market,” the paper states.

At its annual conference in June this year, ILO adopted a resolution calling for immediate, targeted and renewed action to tackle the youth employment crisis. The resolution provides a portfolio of tried and tested measures in five areas: macro-economic policies, employability, labour market policies, youth entrepreneurship and rights. It underscores the need for balance, coherence and complementarity across policy measures.

- The Middle East suffers from the highest youth unemployment in the world, currently recorded at over 25 percent, with North Africa reporting approximately 24 percent. Female youth unemployment is even higher, reaching and exceeding 30 percent across the Arab world.

- The region’s labor force youth participation rates are among the lowest globally, currently standing at around 35 percent, compared to the global average of 52 percent.

- The economic loss of youth unemployment exceeds US$ 40 – 50 billion annually across the Arab world, equivalent to the GDP of countries like Tunisia or Lebanon.

- The large number of youth in the Arab world will continue to add pressure on the labor market over the coming years – approximately a third of the total population is currently below the age of 15, and a further third is aged 15-29. In consequence, tens of millions of young people will enter the region’s work force over the next ten years needing to find jobs either at home or through regional labor mobility

Tackling the youth unemployment challenge will require a dual focus on creating employment opportunities, including self-employment, and ensuring youth have the right skills for the jobs being created. To date, governments in the region have not focused sufficiently on the latter.

Unemployment in the EU averaged 10% and youth unemployment 22.1%, in early 2011 – up from 14.7% in 2008. It ranges from well below 10% in some EU Member States to 50% in those hardest hit by the crisis, notes the resolution, drafted by Employment and Social Affairs Committee Chair Pervenche Berès (S&D, FR).

In the text, adopted by a show of hands, MEPs back the “Youth Opportunities Initiative” communication proposed by the Commission, but say they “have serious doubts as to whether the scale of the actions proposed is proportionate to the gravity of the current youth unemployment crisis experienced in many member states”

The position of young people is highly dependent on the overall economic situation, say MEPs, who therefore urge Member States to devise a “European Investment Plan” to boost inclusive sustainable and job-rich growth.

On 30 January 2012, at the European Council, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso announced that €82 billion in EU structural funds, out of the total €347 billion for 2007-2013, had yet to be allocated and could be redeployed.

MEPs regret that, after four years of crisis, this €82 billion has remained unspent. They urge the Commission to propose, as a priority, to redeploy a substantial part of that money into projects for young people.

They also ask the Commission to consider increasing the EU share of project costs co-funded with national governments of the eight EU countries worst affected by youth unemployment (Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy).

Parliament proposed, in a resolution passed in 2010, that the Council and Commission devise a “European Youth Guarantee”, on the basis of what already exists in some member states such as Austria, to give every young person in the EU the right to a job, an apprenticeship, further training or a job combined with training, if they have been out of work for four months.

MEPs also called on the Commission and Council to “set up a European Quality Charter on Traineeships, to ensure their educational value and avoid exploitation”.

In the resolution, MEPs welcome the Commission’s plan to present a proposal to the Council on the youth guarantee and traineeship charter instruments by the end of 2012 and strongly urge Member States to approve the proposals by the end of 2012 .