Economic Collapse News has reported on the staggering unemployment rate in Spain with their youth unemployment rate reaching 57.2 percent. Now it has been reported by Economist that the total number of unemployed youth ages 15 – 24 in developed countries is nearly equal to the population of the United States at 311 million.
OECD figures suggest that 26m 15- to 24-year-olds in developed countries are not in employment, education or training; the number of young people without a job has risen by 30% since 2007. The International Labour Organisation reports that 75m young people globally are looking for a job. World Bank surveys suggest that 262m young people in emerging markets are economically inactive. Depending on how you measure them, the number of young people without a job is nearly as large as the population of America (311m).
And the fact that youth unemployment has risen thirty percent since 2007 should be especially alarming to policy makers.
EconomicPolicyJournal.com says the economic reasoning for this unemployment is, of course, due to government regulations and interference in the market, as it is common knowledge among economists that, unimpeded, markets will clear. Those reasons are:
1. Governments unemployment payments, which result in more unemployed. Pay people not to work and they won’t.
2. Minimum wage laws. Raise the minimum wage law above the marginal revenue productivity of some workers and those workers will become unemployable.
3. Put into place other regulations which make it difficult to know the cost of hiring (or firing) a worker (see Obamacare and eurozone laws on firing) and employers will refrain from hiring.
This is why it is so important for the general public to be knowledgeable of basic economic principles, especially those who choose to vote. You need to know that those in power will actually make sound economic policy and not simply placate voters with a bag of goodies like minimum wage hikes that inevitably create more unemployment.
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