Greek Youth Unemployment Hits 55 Percent

Economic tragedy leading slowly to social crisis

In March 2012, Spain and Greece passed an unenviable landmark of 50% youth unemployment. That means there were more Spanish and Greek workers under 25 without a job than with one.

Six months later, it's only gotten worse.

A new report from Eurostat shows that youth unemployment has increased across the European Union since last summer, and in Greece it grew by a continent-record 10 percentage points. Youth unemployment in Spain and Greece is now 55% and 53%, incredibly. Some low-lights from the report are in the graph above, which compares August 2011 to August 2012 (or to June, where August figures were unavailable) in Greece, Spain, Italy, the UK, the EU average, and the United States.