Youth employment should be the most pressing issue for employers around the world, according to findings at the World Economic Forum, which ended on Saturday (28th January).

The conference, which was held in Davos, said that job creation, in particular for younger workers, was vital to ensuring that there was economic growth around the world in order to reduce debt and alleviate crises like that in the eurozone.

"Jobs should be our number one priority," said Citi chief executive officer and chair of the forum Vikram Pandit.

Eurozone jobs have been particularly affected by economic downturn, with countries such as Spain and Greece having particularly low employment rates. Spain currently has 22.9 per cent of its population out of work.

Paul Polman, chief executive officer of Unilever, said at the conference that it was essentially unacceptable that in the world there are somewhere in the region of 200 million people who cannot get a job in the current climate.

Posted by Alex Donnell