Youngsters aged between 16 and 24 account for around 40 percent of all unemployed in Britain

Teenager Marcus Howells blames his lack of qualifications for his frustrating failure to find a job.
Kicking an advertising stand outside a job centre after another fruitless visit, the 19-year-old says his lack of GCSEs is the main problem for his lack of success.
"I got a few but not really any good (ones) because I got kicked out of school," said Howells, one of more than 13,000 youngsters in Birmingham who do not have a job.
Once a dynamo for manufacturing, Birmingham is now home to some of the country's worst pockets of unemployment, with the overall jobless rate running at almost 13 percent -- well above the national rate of nearly 8 percent.
What Howells is going through is similar to the experience of a million other youths who, regardless of their education, are struggling to find work in an economy weakened by the financial crisis.
One out of five Britons aged between 16 and 24 were out of work in October to December, according to official data.
The effects of this could haunt them for years as research shows that spells of joblessness make it more likely they will be out of work again and earn less later in life.
The frustration, exacerbated by benefit cuts which take effect next month, could fuel social unrest, similar to last year's violent protests by students over higher university fees.
It is a problem many Western governments fear. Forty percent of young Spaniards are out of work and the average rate in developed countries is more than 18 percent.
Over the next decade, another 400 million young people will join the global labour force, posing a daunting challenge to governments, the head of the International Monetary Fund said last month.
"We face the prospect of a 'lost generation' of young people, destined to suffer their whole lives from worse unemployment and social conditions," said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, adding that high unemployment and rising prices could fuel conflict.
"As tensions within countries increase, we could see rising social and political instability within nations -- even war."
LOST GENERATION
Youngsters aged between 16 and 24 account for around 40 percent of all unemployed in Britain.
The reasons for such a high level lie not only in the recent recession -- the worst since World War Two -- but also in the policies that, after a decade of improvement, led to a rise in youth joblessness several years before the recession set in.

Article from Reuters 15th March 2011