Although in 2012, youth represented 24.4% of the working-age population in Brazil, 46.3% of the unemployed in the same year were young. That unemployment is an issue of serious concern to youth emerged clearly from a survey of youth carried out in 2008: 61% of youth cited a lack of work opportunities as the most important challenge facing their age group, and 44% believed that youth employment programmes should be the government’s number one priority (Abramo et al., This is no different in Brazil (see Chapter 3 for further details).