A special campaign website launched by the ITUC a week prior to the day itself reveals the outlook for employment for young people in hundred countries all over the world – and in the form of weather forecasts.

“It is with sadness we can say that none (!) of the countries can expect fully sunny weather,” said Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the ITUC. “If anything, we see more and more thunder hitting these young workers. We are talking about a whole generation of young people that faces exclusion from the labour market. This is a social and economic time-bomb,” she added.

On the website, http://www.workforecast.org, young workers can also take action by sending an email, a tweet or a Facebook message to their labour ministers asking for decent employment also for young people.

The crisis, and the inability or unwillingness of governments to restore jobs and growth, is having a particularly brutal impact on young people. Official figures show that 75 million young people are without jobs across the world, many millions more are trapped in informal or precarious work, and tens of millions of new job seekers have no prospect of finding work, or education and training to equip them for work in the future. Youth unemployment is as high as 60% in some countries.