PREVIOUS PAGE: UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; WENDY GEORGE
IN THE FRENCH CITY OF MONTPELLIER,
THOMAS PALOT FRETS THAT HIS
FUTURE NOW SEEMS TAINTED. HE IS
ONLY 25 YEARS OLD AND RECENTLY
EMBARKED ON A CAREER AS COMPUTER
TECHNICIAN. BUT FOR THE LAST TWO
YEARS, HE HAS BEEN UNEMPLOYED.
Palot has a diploma from an advanced vocational school, a credential that might have once inoculated
him from this fate. Today that degree merely places him amid the
teeming ranks of a so-called Lost
Generation: He is one of millions of
young people worldwide who have
emerged from college with diplomas only to fall into joblessness and
its attendant hardships — financial
trouble, despair and a nebulous
sense of having lost their way.
“To grow as a person, you have
to have a job,” Palot tells Le Huffington Post, speaking as if this
were self-evident. “Before, I talked about my work with the people
close to me, and now I have nothing to talk about.”
In many countries, youth employment is understood as a
pressing domestic issue. But the
proper lens is global: From Europe
to North America to the Middle
East, unemployment among young
people has swelled into a veritable
epidemic, one that threatens economic growth and social stability
in dozens of countries for decades
to come. Worldwide, some 75 million workers under age 25 were
jobless last year, according to the
International Labour Office, an
increase of more than 4 million
compared to 2007.
The crisis is altering family dynamics, as parents find themselves
caring for grown children and as
unemployed young people defer
starting their own families. It is
reinforcing austerity, as governments struggle to finance unemployment benefits and large numbers of would-be young consumers
find themselves hunkering down in
joblessness. Above all, it is assailing
the psyches of young people who
have been told that education is the