Unemployment has risen to a record 11.2 , with 35 of young people jobless.

And unemployment hovers above 10 , with youth unemployment far higher, at roughly 25 .

Youth unemployment in Spain, for example, is above 50 .

Unemployment stands at about 12 in Italy, and 38 for the young.

Likewise, Spain s unemployment rate is above 25 (and 55 for young people).

Greece s youth unemployment rate now exceeds 60 , and Spain s is above 50 .

Labor market experts thus consider the unemployment rate a potentially misleading indicator, because a youth unemployment rate of 50 does not mean that half of the young population is unemployed. That is why one should look at the unemployment ratio the percentage of the unemployed in the reference population rather than at the unemployment rate.

The Mirage of Youth Unemployment

The overall unemployment rate (12 ) has yet to peak, led by an alarming lack of jobs among the young (24 joblessness in the eurozone as a whole, with highs of 59 and 56 in Greece and Spain, respectively).

Eurostat, the European Union s statistical agency, calculates youth unemployment using both methodologies, but only the flawed indicator is widely reported, despite major discrepancies.

The unemployment rate for young people (15 24 years old) in North Africa and the Middle East is 30 or more.

Among those in the 20 24 age group, the difference between the reported unemployment rate and the percentage of youth without a job and looking for one (the unemployment ratio) is less stark. But, even among this age group, one finds that the unemployment ratio is often about one half of the widely reported unemployment rate.

The statistics say that 80 of Gaza s population is dependent on UN food aid. The youth unemployment rate is 65 .

In the United States, the overall unemployment rate is around 9 , but among 18 25 year olds, it is a staggering 19 .

Moreover, one must ask how much youth unemployment contributes to total unemployment.

In order to further reduce unemployment among young people in the country, the Government has established the National Youth Fund, which is aimed at assisting the country's young people with funding to establish small scale enterprises.

To be sure, a youth unemployment ratio of 13 or 19 is not grounds for complacency. But, while the eurozone s youth unemployment rate has increased since 2009, its ratio has remained the same (though both significantly exceed pre 2008 levels).

So the perverse result of this way of counting the unemployed is that the more young people who pursue additional education or training, the higher the youth unemployment rate rises.

In this sense, Italy represents an extreme case, since even highly skilled young workers, though usually over the age threshold of the youth unemployment rate (29.5 in the country), are being marginalized.

That would have been painful, but it could have spared the Greeks from a 7 decline in GDP and a rise in unemployment to 22 (including an increase in youth unemployment to a whopping 48 ).

In calculating youth unemployment, therefore, the same number of unemployed individuals is divided by a much smaller number, to reflect the smaller labor force, which makes the unemployment rate look a lot higher.

In 2000, the unemployment rate for young males aged 15 24 was 15.7 the rate for women was 16.8 .

But, while the eurozone s youth unemployment rate has increased since 2009, its ratio has remained the same (though both significantly exceed pre 2008 levels).

The high unemployment rate among women was a reflection of Latvia's overall unemployment rate, which stood at 10.6 per cent.

Youth unemployment worldwide has increased during the past decade.

Germany s unemployment rate this past summer was around 5.5 , and its youth unemployment rate was around 8 remarkably low compared with many other high income economies.

In Spain and Greece, unemployment is approaching 30 , while youth unemployment is nearing a staggering 60 .

Unemployment stands at about 12 , and is probably twice as high among young people.

Unemployment has risen to a record 11.2 , with 35 of young people jobless. And the tax burden, which has exceeded 40 of GDP since 1990, now stands at almost 43 of GDP.

If the economy is at potential, the unemployment rate equals the NAIRU or the natural rate of unemployment.

Young people have the highest rates of unemployment and are in many ways the most vulnerable to the social depredations caused by unemployment and poverty.

The rate of unemployment amongst Ethiopians is estimated at about 13.2 compared with 7.4 in the general Israeli population.

Women have a slightly higher unemployment rate (7.4 ) than men.

Even though the employment rate of men is higher than that of women, the unemployment rate for men is higher (10.2 ) than that of women (9.9 ).

In November 2008, before the annual winter rise, unemployment in the Stuttgart Region stood at 3.8 , 0.1 lower than the rate for Baden Württemberg, in February 2009 it was 4.7 .

Young people are particularly vulnerable to unemployment.

The teenage unemployment rate is another under appreciated indicator that is at an alarming level.

Consider Spain, which has an unemployment rate of 20 and more than 40 among young people.

In Italy and Spain, growth is negative, and youth unemployment is 35 and 55 , respectively.

The problem of high youth unemployment is certainly not confined to the developing world, however.

The result is a growing youth unemployment crisis among poor and working class youth.

Unemployment remains far too high, with alarming levels of long term and youth joblessness.

In October 2011, unemployment rate was 17.4 .

The Commission is encouraged by the reduction of the unemployment rate.

The rate of addiction among the total population is 127 per million, and the incidence among young people under the age of 18 is even smaller.