Youth unemployment has skyrocketed worldwide over the past decade to around 88 million, according to a new study by the International Labour Office (ILO). The study found that young people aged 15 to 24 now represent nearly half the world’s jobless. The study – Global Employment Trends for Youth 2004 – found that while youth represent 25 per cent of the working-age population between the ages of 15 and 64, they made up as much as 47 per cent of the total 186 million people out of work worldwide in 2003.

This article is from the October 2004 issue of New Internationalist.
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