OECD urges focus on youth unemployment

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Young people continue to bear the brunt of the jobs crisis, with nearly 11 million 15- to 24-year-olds out of work in early 2012 in member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the organization said yesterday.

Youth unemployment among OECD members in March 2012 was 17.1 percent, close to its November 2009 peak of 18.3 percent, according to new OECD data released in advance of the G-20 Labor Ministers Meeting in Mexico May 17 and 18. The figure in Turkey, an OECD member state, fell to 18.3 percent for the period covering January, February and March of this year, as compared with the same period in 2011, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said yesterday. Governments need to address this economic and social problem with decisive and concrete action, said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría. “We propose concrete and targeted policy action and investment in the skills and education of the young to give them hope for a better future,” he said.

Young European jobseekers are suffering the most, with unemployment close to historic highs across the continent. More than one in five young people in the labor market in France, the U.K., Sweden, Poland, Ireland and Italy are out of work.