Action is needed on youth joblessness

While no government can magic economic growth out of thin air, it is in the government's power to make economic growth as job-friendly as possible.

Europe's leaders gathered in Berlin last week to discuss the topic of unemployment, and youth unemployment in particular. The statistics for unemployment among young people across the continent are frightening: six million under-25s, one in four, without work.

The situation is chronic in southern Europe.

In Greece, the proportion of young people who are jobless is approaching a staggering two-thirds. That is a social and political timebomb. It's a similar story in Spain. ...