They are among the 250,000 people under the age of 25 who are out of work in the Nether- lands,a group that accounts for 40 percent of the nation’s unemployed.A storm of anger boils up at the government-sponsoredyouth center,even among those who are continuing their studies.
“We study for jobs that don’t exist.”Nicollete Steggerda,23,said. After three decades of prosperity,unemployment among 10 member nations of the European Community has exceeded 11 percent,affecting a total of 12.3 million people,and the number is Climbing.
The bitter disappointment long expressed by British youths is spreading across the continent. The title of a rock song “No Future” can now be seen written on the brick walls of closed factories in Belgium and France.
Recent surveys have found that the increasing argument in the last few years over the deployment in Europe of North Atlantic Treaty Organization missiles and the possibitity of nuclear war have clouded European youth’s confidence in the future.
One form of protest tends to put the responsibility for a country’s economic troubles on the large numbers of“guest workers”from Third World nations,people welcomed in western Europe in the years of prosperity.
Young Europeans,brought up in an extended period of economic Success and general stability, seem to resemble Americans more then they do their own parents.Material enjoyment has given them a sense of expectation,even the right,to a standard of living that they see around them.