Finding work proves harder for world's youth

Global youth unemployment has started to worsen again after three years of modest improvement, with young people in emerging economies such as Brazil particularly badly hit.

The number of unemployed 15- to 24-year-olds in the world is set to swell by half a million this year to 71m, according to forecasts from the International Labour Organisation, the UN agency. As a result, the youth jobless rate will edge up from 12.9 per cent in 2015 to 13.1 per cent, close to its peak of 13.2 per cent in 2013.

Many young people have struggled to find a secure foothold in the labour market since the financial crisis, leaving them particularly exposed to the ups and downs of the slow and uneven global recovery.

.. In total, almost 38 per cent of working young people in the world are in poverty, compared with about a quarter of all working adults....

The ILO said the persistent lack of decent jobs in many regions was also one of the drivers of international migration among young people. Its figures show that a fifth of the global youth population was willing to move permanently to another country last year.