EU leaders met last month to talk about ways to tackle persistent unemployment among the young, while G20 labor and finance ministers also discussed the topic in Moscow on July 19. However, historical OECD data reveal a constant relationship between unemployment rates of different age groups and raise questions about the validity of a targeted strategy across the region.



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The graphic shows that in most European countries, youth unemployment rates, despite the boom of the crisis years, have remained a constant function of the jobless rate of the rest of the active population. The function between the two age groups does vary significantly from one country to another. Germany is the nearest to equality in rates (1.5x) whereas the U.K. and Italy have youth rates close to four times that of the rest of the active population. The majority of countries have ratios between two and three times that of the over-25 age bracket.

Over the last five years, Italian youth unemployment has stayed stubbornly at four times the level seen among over-25s. This does not detract from the challenge posed by the historically high level reached at the end of Q1 2013 (39.3%), but indicates that Italy has a comparatively high youth unemployment that predates the crisis (3.8x in Q3 ‘08 vs. 3.9x in Q1 ‘13).

Of Europe’s main economies, only Germany has a youth unemployment rate currently below its pre-crisis level. Youth unemployment rate was 7.9% in Q1 2013, down from 10.0% in Q3 2008. Incidentally, the unemployment rate for over-25s dropped from 6.9% to 5.1% over the same period.



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