The data about unemployment in Europe has been grim since before the recession. However, while the jobless rate has improved throughout much of the world, in the economically weakest nations in Europe the rates continue to be close to 25%. While it has been regularly pointed out, the jobs picture among the young is worse than the population as a whole. Some countries in Europe face a “lost generation” of workers, which will greatly and negatively affect their gross domestic products (GDPs) for years as the purchasing power of these young people will never match that of people who have been in the workforce for a number of years.

According to new data from Gallup researchers:

The scarcity of good jobs has been one of the most troubling aspects of the economic crisis facing southern Europe, particularly for younger people with little job experience. In 2013, nearly half of 15- to 29-year-olds in six southern European countries are underemployed — meaning they are either unemployed or working part time but wanting full-time work.

The GDP growth rates in the nations with the highest unemployment — Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal — have been flat to down in most quarters over the past five years. Even for some of the nations that have staged extremely modest recoveries, their young people will reach their best earnings years two decades from now. Some of the 15- to 29-year-olds will have substandard wages for life, having never recovered from their years of unemployment. Some may never find full-time work at all. Each of these four countries faces another battle for GDP growth between 2035 and 2050. That may seem like a long way off, but since parts of Europe may not recover from its extremely deep recession until the end of this decade, any years of prosperity will be short lived, at least among the region’s weakest economies.

Many nations, including the United States, have to handle the challenge of the economic effects of high unemployment among the young people who can work. However, the challenge in southern Europe is so colossal and GDPs there so badly crippled that probably there is no solution at all.

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