The U.S. Millennial Failure to Launch

Since 2007 the U.S. has seen a steady rate of 13% of its youth neither working nor in education. Meanwhile, many top performing education systems either have much lower rates of unemployed youth not in education, or have seen declines on this indicator. Germany in particular has seen its share of youth not employed or in education decrease sharply over the last decade. This is largely due to the German vocational education and training system which ensures high employability, even without a college degree, and includes clear pathways into higher education from vocational education for those who wish to pursue it. For more on how Germany prepares its youth to succeed after compulsory education, see CIEB’s German Education System profile.