Unemployment Rates around the world

Here's another set of data that I got from the IMF's World Economic Outlook, April 2012. But this refers to overall unemployment for all ages, not just the youth.

Notice that the five developed economies of Asia -- Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore -- have low unemployment rates compared to their European and North American counterparts.

One explanation would be that entrepreneurship and business regulations in these Asian economies are not as strict and rigid as those in Europe and N. America.

For many Asian emerging economies, unemployment rate is mild. Pakistan and the Philippines are more of "outliers".

High unemployment rate means the demand for labor (by employers) is a lot smaller than the supply of labor, all other things being equal. It is possible that employers have high demand for workers but people want their salaries and benefits to be higher than what the employers would offer. So some people would prefer to be jobless -- and get some subsidies from the government or family members -- than have a work.

Source: Government and Taxes blog