根据传统统计数据，韩国的青年失业率似乎相当温和:“只有”9.6%的“活跃”青年劳动力处于失业状态，而2011年欧盟27国失业率为21.4%。青年失业率高达8.5%的德国是欧洲国家中少数几个超过韩国的国家。但韩国的情况在一个方面不同寻常。从代际风险分担的角度来看，韩国青年失业率是45 ~ 54岁成人失业率的4.6倍;在德国，这一数字仅为1.7。如果用未就业、未接受教育或培训的青年人数(NEET)占青年总人数的百分比来衡量失业率，则会出现更多的问题。韩国的NEET数据在经合组织国家中位居前列，特别是在接受高等教育的年轻人中。本文为解释这一难题提供了一些思路:首先概述了青年失业的主要原因和一般的政策干预措施;由于这一问题的很大一部分是结构性的，本文简要审查了为避免对失业青年造成长期创伤而可能采取的立即措施;欧洲和美国的差异尤其显示了失业保险等自动稳定器的重要性，以减轻经济衰退时期年轻人承担不利风险的压力。 The main part is devoted to possible lessons for Korea from Europe, in particular from Germany. Dual education and vocational training systems that emphasise middle level and market oriented skills are identified as institutional device both for fairer intergenerational risk sharing as well as for a smoother transition from school to work. In its outlook, the paper comes back to the puzzle of highly and academically inflated youth unemployment by referring to a possible hidden cause in Korea: A strong insurance motive might explain the overall striving for an academic degree inducing not only wasteful congestion at labour market entries but also unfair job allocation through credentialism.