A portrait of the youth labor market in 13 countries, 1980–2007
"In most industrialized countries, relatively high rates of joblessness among young persons have persisted for many years, although with considerable variation across the countries. In recent decades, the unemployment rate for persons under the age of 25 in France regularly has been greater than 20 percent, while in Italy it rose to more than 30 percent, and in Spain it has surpassed 40 percent. Germany and Japan had very low youth unemployment rates at the beginning of the 1980s—around 4 percent. However, more recently, even Germany, with its apprenticeship system, and Japan, with its close cooperation between schools and businesses, have had youth unemployment rates similar to those in the United States, in or near the 10-percent range..."