IANS/AKI | 01 Apr, 2010
At least one in three youngsters in Italy is unemployed as the country still suffers the impact of global recession, according to a data released by the government.

Till February, there were about 2.13 million jobless in Italy out of the total 22.81 million population of employed people in the country, state statistics agency Istat said Wednesday.

The percentage of young Italians aged between 15 and 24 has increased to 28.2 percent, a 4 percent jump from last year. And, overall 8.7 percent of Italians were out of work, up 1.2 percent compared to the last year's figure.

Italy emerged from a recession during the third quarter of last year but slipped back into contraction during the final three months of 2009.

"I can't stress enough how disturbing the high youth unemployment is," said Gugliemo Loy, leader of Italian Work Union (UIL), which represents workers of textile, metal and transport industries.

Moody's Investors Service analysis says the country's ability to tackle its slow economic growth depends on the government's ability to manage its unusually high 1.8 trillion euros in debt, which is a quarter of total debt owed by all 27 member countries of the European Union.

"The government faces some challenges in growing out of its high public-debt levels given the current context of low economic growth," Alexander Kockerbeck, a Moody's analyst, said in a report released Wednesday.