Youth Unemployment expected to remain at 40% until 2011

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has stated that during 2010 youth unemployment could reach an average of 20.5% throughout it’s 30 member countries - reaching 24% for the European Union Countries. The report also states how the peak is expected to be seen in Spain, where there could be an upward turn towards the end of the year.

Spain has shown the fastest growing rate of youth unemployment since the start of the crisis, and is forecast to remain above 40% until at least 2011, according to projections released by the OECD today.

Spain has witnessed higher levels of unemployment among those under 24 years - standing at 24.6% since the recession began two years ago, the highest percentage followed by Ireland at 18.5%, where youth unemployment this group has tripled during the same period.

The average increase of youth unemployment seen by the OECD has been 5.9% - more than twice the increase in unemployment for the entire population, at 2.5%. By the close of 2009, youth unemployment already stood at 18.8% against 8.6% for the population as a whole.

Some of the contributing factors relating to youth unemployment, is given as the high level of temporality of this age group, which in 2008 reached its peak in Poland to 64%, followed by Spain, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, France and Switzerland all above 50%.

The OECD point out that this outlook is especially bleak for young people who lack basic skills, and if they can not find or keep a first job, they run the risk that their career will be blighted by long-term unemployment.