欧元区青年失业率达24.4% 创下历史新高

The crisis facing the younger generation across the Eurozone worsened last month as youth unemployment hit a new record high of 24.4% with under-25s in Spain, Italy and Portugal finding it harder to get jobs.

The grim news on on employment came as the Netherlands was stripped of its prized AAA credit rating despite the country's recent exit from a year-long recession.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's said on Friday that weakening growth prospects showed the country would struggle to improve its financial stability and generate new jobs.

It said: "The downgrade reflects our opinion that the Netherlands' growth prospects are now weaker than we had previously anticipated, and the real GDP per capita trend growth rate is persistently lower than that of peers."

It cited weakening consumer demand, high levels of personal debt and falling house prices for keeping consumer spending and tax receipts low in the next few years. One in four Dutch homebuyers is in negative equity as a result of falling property values.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, said S&P's downgrade to AA+ was disappointing when the economy had returned to growth.

S&P's action leaves only three members of the eurozone with a top rating from all three agencies – Germany, Luxembourg and Finland.

The Eurozone jobless data showed Spain's youth unemployment rate has now increased to 57.4%, only marginally below Greece's August high of 58% - which remains the highest rate of youth unemployment for any country in the eurozone's history. Italy's youth unemployment rate rose to 41.2%, from 40.5% the previous month. In Portugal, it rose to 36.5% from 36.2%.

The startling figures from southern Europe contrast with rates in the north where Germany has a 7.8% youth unemployment rate and the Netherlands an 11.6% rate.

Italy's credit rating is perilously close to entering junk status and Rome is lobbying hard in Brussels for more time to cut the country's annual deficit. The coalition government headed by Enrico Letta said on Friday it would call a fresh confidence vote in parliament, despite winning a vote earlier in the week, to confirm his government's majority after the withdrawal of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party from the ruling coalition.

Letta said the vote would be held after his centre-left Democratic party elects a new leader on 8 December, and would be based on a new agenda for 2017 which would be discussed with coalition partners.

"The confidence vote will allow us to pass from defence into attack," said Letta, whose government is backed by the Democratic party, a centrist group Civic Choice and a centre-right group that broke away from Forza Italia.

Considering the chaos in Italian politics and the credit rating downgrades affecting some of the EU's traditional paymasters, France and the Netherlands in particular, there are still many analysts who fear for the eurozone's growth prospects over the next decade.

Youth unemployment also remains a scar that shows little sign of healing. While the adult unemployment rate fell across the eurozone from 12.2 to 12.1%, 3.6m under-25s are now unemployed, an increase of 15,000 on the previous month.

据英国《卫报》报道，欧元区的青年人失业率在10月达到24.4%，创下历史新高。年轻一代面临的就业危机逾发恶化，特别是西班牙、意大利和葡萄牙的青年（25岁以下）找工作格外困难。

这则关于就业问题残酷消息传出之时，荷兰刚刚从长达一年的经济萧条中有所恢复，却未能保住“AAA”的信用评级。

根据评级组织标准普尔在11月29日发表的报告，荷兰当前经济增长前景越发疲软，仍然面临保持金融稳定和增加就业机会的艰巨任务。

标准普尔说道：“荷兰信用等级下调反映了我们的观点，即荷兰的经济增长幅度低于我们之前的预期，而人均GDP的趋势增长率也一直低于其他国家。”

标准普尔列举了一些荷兰经济的现状：消费需求持续低迷，个人负债率高居不下，为了刺激消费而下调房价，未来几年的税收收入持续偏低。由于房价下跌，拥有房产的荷兰人中有四分之一已处于负资产状态。

荷兰的财政大臣杰罗恩•迪塞布洛姆表示，荷兰的经济刚刚开始复苏，而“标准普尔”却将荷兰降级为“AA+”，这无疑令人失望。

标准普尔的这个动作让欧元区只有三个国家仍拥有标普最高的AAA评级，分别是德国、卢森堡和芬兰。

欧元区失业数据显示，西班牙的青年失业率增长最快，现已达到57.4%，仅比希腊在8月创下的最高纪录58%低0.6个百分点。意大利的青年失业率由10月的40.5%增长至41.2%，葡萄牙则由36.2% 增长至 36.5%。

与南欧国家惊人的高失业率相比，北部国家的情况较为乐观，德国和荷兰的青年失业率分别只有7.8%和11.6%。

意大利的信用评级已降到了难堪的地步了。意大利政府正在努力地向欧盟总部争取时间来解决财政赤字问题。11月26日意大利联合政府总理莱塔在针对2017年预算案的信任投票中获胜，这令其所领导的联合政府在经历了前总理贝卢斯科尼的意大利力量党退出的打击后，得到一定程度的稳定。尽管如此，莱塔领导的新联合政府还是在29日宣布，即将发起新一轮的信任投票。

莱塔称，投票将在12月8日在他所在的中左翼民主党选出一位新党首之后进行。投票将会依照与其他联合政府成员商定的2017年日程规划来进行。

莱塔说，“信任投票将使我们的处境转守为攻。”莱塔政府的主要支持者是民主党、中间派联盟Civic Choice，以及一个从意大利力量党分离出来的中右翼组织。

鉴于意大利政治上的混乱与标普评级的下降会影响到一些欧盟的传统出资国，尤其是法国和荷兰，仍有很多分析员对欧元区未来10年的经济发展前景感到担忧。

青年失业问题就像一道不会愈合的伤疤。欧元区的成年人失业率由12.2%下降到 12.1%，目前约有360万25岁以下的青年处于失业状态，这一数据比10月多出1.5万。