Leaders of Europe assemble in Paris today to discuss ways of dealing with youth employment crisis
after German leader Angela Merkel highlighted it as a major issue that the continent is facing.

The European Commission’s latest statistics reveal that the continent’s youth joblessness rate stands
at 23.5%, wherein around 7.5 million people aged 15-24 are neither involved in work, education or
training.

The effect of the crisis is experienced differently across the bloc. After the July summit, Merkel
pushed the issue to become the bloc’s priority by addressing the crisis as “perhaps the most pressing
problem facing Europe”.

She stated that the continent faced the exposure of a “lost generation”, thereby acting as a catalyst
to various measures focusing on reversing the trend.
France and other countries claim that current order allows Germany to recruit enormous posted
workers on “mini-jobs” without social protection.