Merri Shaffer is unemployed. She's searching for a job, like many of the 81 million other young people out of work worldwide. "I've been looking, I've been hunting, a lot of online research. A lot of job sites that I feel are coming up completely leaving me empty handed," Shaffer says. The economic downturn is hitting young people more than others, according to Elena Gastaldo of the UN's International Labour Organization. "In these days, young men and women are three times more likely to be unemployed than their older counterpart," Gastaldo notes. In developed countries, like here in the U.S., nearly one young person in every six is unemployed. But as the report shows, youth unemployment is a global problem. It affects all types of economies, in every region of the world.
Young people in the Middle East and North Africa have the highest rate of unemployment.
American University professor Diane Singerman says the explanation is simple.
"There is a youth bulge in the Middle East, which means that a very high percentage of the population is young," Singerman explains. In Egypt, the most populous country in the Middle East, the government used to guarantee jobs for all college graduates, but no longer. And many of its graduates are not sufficiently qualified for the private sector jobs that exist.
Gender also plays a role in the Middle East. Fewer than one in three young women there is employed, even though women are generally more educated than men.
"The idea is that women should be educated, but they should be educated to take care of their children," explains Singerman. Galstado says the outlook for young people all over the world is bleak.
"Young people, particularly in times of crisis, are the last to be hired and the first to be fired," she says. She adds that young people have two strikes against them: they lack a large network and also work experience.
Merri Shaffer says young people should be given an opportunity to get the experience employers are looking for.
"It's incredibly annoying. It's incredibly frustrating," says Shaffer. "It's hard knowing that that could always be used against us when walking into the interview room or when sending out our resumes and cover letters." But she won't give up the hunt. "My dad continues to tell me that looking for work is a full-time job, so eight hours a day, maybe a little less than that, I'm searching, I'm shoveling resumes and cover letters out there, I'm still doing the best I can," Shaffer says. Many young people like Shaffer hope the job market recovers soon, so their time and talents aren't wasted.
