Worldwide Youth Unemployment Rates Will Stay High For Years

According to new numbers, youth unemployment rates across Europe just hit new highs.

Unfortunately, the young and unemployed are not likely to see their situation improve anytime soon. According to a report by the International Labour Organization, the global youth unemployment rate will continue to edge higher beyond 2014, and will hit 12.9% by 2017, 0.2 percentage points up from 2012.

From the ILO:

"As the euro area crisis continues in its second year, the impacts are spreading further, slowing down economies from East Asia to Latin America. Other regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa that had expected faster improvements in their youth Labour markets will now take longer to revert to levels seen prior to the global financial crisis. In developed economies, youth unemployment rates are expected to fall over the coming years, after having suffered from the largest increase among all regions at the beginning of the crisis, but principally because discouraged young people are withdrawing from the Labour market and not because of stronger hiring activity among youngsters."

Here's a chart of the ILO's projections:

Here's an interactive map of the youth unemployment rate in Eurozone and neighboring countries. (Source: latest available data from Eurostat.)