By: juanrico

May 16 2012

Category: Uncategorized

Youth unemployment across the OECD: how does the UK compare?
Nearly 11m young people are out of work across the OECD. How has youth unemployment changed and which countries are experiencing the worst rates?
• Get the data
• More data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian
Share 10

Email

Youth groups in Madrid protesting at the high unemployment rate, one of the highest across the OECD. Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters
Youth unemployment across the OECD has risen alarmingly with nearly 11m 15-24 year olds out of work, according to latest figures.

The statistics published by the OECD, show youth unemployment reached a rate of 17.1% in March 2012, more than double the unemployment rate affecting the general population. Greece and Spain have fared worst with both reporting youth unemployment rates of over 50% of the total youth labour force. The data also shows that at least 23m young people in OECD countries are not in education, employment or training (NEETS).

Increasing youth unemployment has meant that now more than one in five young people in the labour market are out of work in France, Sweden, Poland, Ireland, Italy and the UK. The UK youth unemployment rate for March 2012 stood at 21.9% and we are increasingly catching up with Europe who have had high unemployment for a while.

The chart above shows the rates for youth unemployment for OECD countries in March 2012 and December 2007. It illustrates the rise in youth unemployment for many countries – only Germany, Israel, Turkey, Chile and Belgium recorded decreases.

Spain has had a dramatic rise from 17.4% in March 2007 to 51.1% in March 2012. Likewise Greece has increased from a youth unemployment rate of 21.6% in 2007 to 51.2% in March 2012. The chart below shows the rates for unemployment and inactivity for 15/16-24 year olds in 2011.

Turkey and Israel had high inactivity rates at over 20% but once again Spain and Greece recorded the highest unemployment rates for young people in 2011. The EU unemployment and inactivity rates for 2011 stood at 6.6%.

You can find rates for youth unemployment, inactivity and NEETs in the spreadsheet. There are also details of youth unemployment before the crisis at its peak and its latest value in OECD countries since January 2007. What can you do with this data?

Data summary

Youth unemployment rates in OECD countries (%), December 2007 to March 2012
Click heading to sort table. Download this data
Country
December 2007
March 2012
Note: Percentage of total youth labour force, 15-24
Source: OECD
Switzerland* 6.5 7.5
Norway 6.7 7.6
Germany 11.4 7.9
Austria 7.3 8.6
Japan 8.0 8.6
Mexico* 7.2 9.1
Netherlands 6.4 9.3
Korea 8.7 9.5
Australia 9.5 11.7
Israel* 14.0 13.6
Canada 11.0 13.9
Denmark 7.1 15.1
Turkey 17.1 15.4
United States 11.7 16.4
Slovenia 11.5 16.5
Chile* 18.8 16.5
New Zealand 9.4 16.7
Belgium 17.3 17.1
Iceland* 6.6 17.2
Luxembourg 15.1 17.4
Czech Republic 9.6 19.0
Finland 16.2 19.4
France 18.3 21.8
United Kingdom 13.6 21.9
Sweden 19.3 22.8
Estonia 7.3 24.9
Poland 18.5 26.7
Hungary 19.9 28.4
Ireland 9.4 30.3
Slovak Republic 19.4 33.9
Italy 21.3 35.9
Portugal 19.7 36.1
Spain 19.7 51.1
Greece 21.6 51.2
OECD 12.8 17.1
G7 12.2 15.9
Euro area (17) 15.2 22.1
European Union 15.1 22.6

Download the data

• DATA: download the full spreadsheet

More data

More data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian

World government data

• Search the world’s government data with our gateway

Development and aid data

• Search the world’s global development data with our gateway

Can you do something with this data?

• Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group
• Contact us at data@guardian.co.uk

• Get the A-Z of data
• More at the Datastore directory
• Follow us on Twitter
• Like us on Facebook

Posted by
Ami Sedghi
Wednesday 16 May 2012 08.00 BST
guardian.co.uk
Comments (3)
Article history
UK news
World news
Europe · Spain · Greece · United States · France · Sweden · Italy · Poland · Ireland
Business
OECD · Unemployment and employment statistics
Society
Unemployment
Education
More from Datablog on
World news
Europe · Spain · Greece · United States · France · Sweden · Italy · Poland · Ireland
Business
OECD · Unemployment and employment statistics
Society
Unemployment
More blogposts
More data
More on this story

UK unemployment fall raises hopes recession-hit economy on mend
Number of jobless people falls to 2.63 million, the lowest since last summer, official figures from the ONS show
Claimants constituency by constituency: full data
Youth unemployment mapped
Jonathan Portes: Flexible UK workers are staying in work – but we must invest in job creation
Buy Facts are Sacred – the Power of Data ebook

Buy for Kindle (UK) – £2.99
Buy for Kindle (US) – $4.61
Buy for iPhone, iPad or iPod touch (UK) – £2.99
Buy for iPhone, iPad or iPod touch (US) – $3.99
Learn more about Guardian Shorts
Next Previous Blog home
Share Email

Ads by Google
Expat Living In Spain?
£100k+ In UK Pensions? Download A Free Guide To QROPS & Expert Advice
Your.QROPSchoices.com/Guardian
Spain Jobs
Search quality executive jobs €80K+ in Spain. Find yours today!
http://www.Experteer.com
Expat Health Insurance
Quick, Compare, Trusted Website Expatriate Health Insurance Quotes
http://www.ExpatFinder.com/Instant-Quotes
Comments
3 comments, displaying first

Post a comment
Staff
Contributor
criticayactua
16 May 2012 11:59AM
Hi all!, have you seen Spanish unemployment rates???. 51.2 for youth unemployment VS the 52.2 of Greece… Surprised?. This is because you do not (still?) know that Spain is not Spain, but SPAINISTAN!. Visit this blog if you’d like to understand what the h… I’m talking about… and thanks in advance! http://www.spainistan.blogspot.com

Recommend? (1)
Respond (0)
Report

| Link
Errequeerre
16 May 2012 12:36PM
Spanish kids are actually enrolled in a large sort of proffesional courses ranging from university studies to post graduation sort of masters though, a great massive lot were unable to obtain the GCSE to lay then their bones on the easy estates of the construction , an unquilificated easy way to grasp a temporary wage to waste at once on a n appealing range of commodities such as one-roomed flat- to unable them later to comply with their loans commitment- or cars… keeping the rest of saving for weekends rompings or spirits gulping down. All the result of the Education Design failure !!!

Recommend? (1)
Respond (0)
Report

| Link