Leading article: The danger of a lost generation

Of the long list of victims of the financial crisis, the growing numbers of young people struggling to find work are perhaps the ones with the most to complain about. The looming youth unemployment crisis is also a timebomb threatening social cohesion and economic capacity over the long term.

The numbers are stark. At the last count, there were 973,000 people aged between 18 and 24 without jobs. But those figures only account for the three months up to the end of July. Official statistics to be published this week are expected to show a surge from recent graduates and school-leavers, pushing youth unemployment up to more than a million for the first time since the early 1990s.

And that may not be the worst of it. Experts predict joblessness will be rising well into next year, as the crisis in the eurozone and the Government's spending cuts programme bite increasingly hard on Britain's faltering economic growth. The sharp hike in university tuition fees next autumn may also push even more young people on to a jobs market not yet able to absorb them.

The youth jobless numbers may appear only a footnote when compared with total unemployment of more than 2.5 million. But the long-term implications are much more serious, raising fears of a lost generation that are by no means overstated.

Unemployment at a young age is expensive: costing the state in lost economic utility and also adding to welfare and social care costs. But the human cost is devastating, leaving youngsters struggling to bounce back from prospects blighted by events beyond their control. Even those who do ultimately find work may feel the ill effects for years. Some studies estimate that a period of unemployment at the start of a person's working life can result in wages between 12 and 15 per cent lower by the time the person is 42.

The Government has made some effort to address the problem. In May, David Cameron and Nick Clegg both put their names to a £60m package to create 250,000 apprenticeships and 100,000 work placements over the next two years. But such efforts pale into insignificance next to the scale of the problem. Britain's burgeoning youth unemployment crisis cannot be ignored.