UN: Global youth unemployment, poverty rates remain high

Feb 6, 2012, 20:48 GMT

New York - The global youth unemployment and poverty rates remain high following a 2009 peak of 75.8 million unemployed people ages 15-24, the United Nations said Monday in an annual report.

Currently, 152 million young workers live in households below the poverty line of 1.25 dollars per day per person, the World Youth Report said.

It cited high unemployment rates in the Middle East and North Africa as contributing factors to the Arab Spring. The overall youth unemployment rates in 2010 stood at 25.5 per cent in the Middle East and 23.8 per cent in North Africa. Female unemployment in the regions stood at 39.4 per cent in the Middle East and 34.1 per cent in North Africa.

The number of 75.8 million unemployed young people in 2009 was part of the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. The report said that the number of current unemployed youths remains high, though no new global total was issued.

'Today, we have the largest generation of young people the world has ever known,' UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in the report. 'They are demanding their rights and a greater voice in the economic and political life.'

He called for UN programmes supporting a new social contract of job-rich economic growth, starting with young people. The report said young people today are better educated than their predecessors, but there are not enough jobs for them.

The UN Fund for Population said last year that there were an estimated 1.8 billion people ages 15-24 in a world of 7 billion people.