(B) Creating jobs for the up-and-coming generation has become one of the most urgent problems facing policymakers worldwide.
Persistent recession and budget cutting have brought the situation to crisis 16 in some developed countries一like debt-burdened
Greece, where youth unemployment is over 51%. Over the past two years, the share of Americans ages 18 to 24 who are employed, at only 54%, is the lowest on record. Without action, this army of young jobless could become “a lost generation,” warns Gianni Rosas, the Geneva-based coordinator of the International Labor Organization (ILO). “We are in a situation where our kids are worse off than we were 20 years ago,’’ he says. We are going backward.” The crisis now facing the world’s young has been 17 for some time. Although in many countries the jobless rate for youth
has consistently been much higher than for the overall population, policymakers in both advanced and emerging economies have generally failed to address the problem. They are paying the price today. Young people in the world’s richest nations got hit the hardest.
Violent riots in London and many cities in the U.K. in 2011 were, in part, the result of 18 among young men over miserable
economic prospect. Persistent joblessness is a key source of the rage that sparked the Arab Spring. If the new leaders in the region can’t
create more jobs for young people,it could descend into a 19 cycle of violence.
The factors that cause youth unemployment often differ among regions and labor systems. Yet,youth unemployment also has common roots throughout the world. Young entrants to the workforce are often the most vulnerable in economic downturns. Excessive
red tape 20 entrepreneurship and investment and therefore job creation. Those young workers who do find employment are often
trapped in lousy jobs. Facing such hurdles,young people everywhere are finding that the traditional route to success—education— isn’t paying off as much as in the past.
【題組】16. (A) curlicues (B) proportions (C) repercussions (D) shudders