EUROPEAN leaders sounded the alarm on youth unemployment yesterday and called for more help for businesses to help solve the problem that has left nearly one in four young people in Europe jobless.

At a conference in Paris yesterday, French, Italian and German ministers warned that if high youth unemployment is not addressed, young people will lose faith in their governments and the European Union.

"We now have to rescue an entire generation of people who are scared," said Enrico Giovannini, Italy's labor minister. "We have the best ever educated generation in this continent, and we are putting them on hold."

European countries have seen their jobless rates skyrocket, first fueled by the global recession and then by the continent's debt crisis. The jobless rate for the EU's 27 member countries is now 10.9 percent. Young people have fared even worse: In most European countries, the youth unemployment rate is twice that of the overall rate. In Greece and Spain, it is more than 50 percent.

EU countries have struggled to tackle the problem. Budget cuts imposed to control outsized deficits - which have cut thousands of public-sector jobs and left little money for economic stimulus or employment programs - have only exacerbated youth unemployment.

Many countries with the worst unemployment problems, like Greece, Spain and Italy, are implementing labor market reforms that should eventually spur growth and create more jobs by making it easier for companies to hire and fire people.