Rising unemployment. Mounting tension in the Falklands. Social anxiety bubbling over into large-scale rioting. The Iron Lady’s image spread across TV screens and newspapers. Are we living in the 1980s?

Maybe not, but there can be no denying that these are alarming times. The number of jobless has risen quarter on quarter and, most worryingly of all, youth unemployment is now at its highest level since records began, with nearly one in four people under the age of 25 currently out of work.

I entered the job market in the summer of 2011. As a 22 year old graduate at the very beginning of my career, the debate surrounding the challenges facing Britain’s youth is one I am particularly sensitive to.

It is very easy to blame young people for their own misfortune. Mature onlookers often comment on how unprepared young jobseekers are for the realities of the modern workplace, on how they lack the skills needed to get on in the world. Notably, these hands-off commentators are often quick to absolve themselves of the responsibility of preparing them.

On one level, of course, their narrative is true. There are some jobs out there, notably in the engineering and tech sectors, but these often fall beyond the reach of a generation by and large unequipped with the requisite computing and mathematical skills.

It hardly makes sense to blame young people for the failings of institutions that have shaped them. Young people have been raised under a false assumption – that jobs are for the taking for those who work hard and gain qualifications. Emerging from schools, colleges and universities, they are told that these same qualifications do not match the requirements of the market. They need to be reskilled, retrained, reformed.

If this is so, it is surely the job of our schools and further education colleges to do it. Michael Gove only last week revealed plans to replace ICT with computer science in secondary education, and this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction.

However, the real cause of youth unemployment, outside niche sectors and developing industries, is not a lack of skills but a lack of jobs. No matter how skilled Britain’s young workers might be, a shrinking jobs market will inevitably mean many will lose out through no fault of their own.

In many ways, though, my generation is already the most informed and best connected there has ever been, and the future isn’t necessarily all doom and gloom. Through the internet we have access to a knowledge bank that is growing by the hour, and social networks that most of our parents could only dream of. For those savvy enough to use them, there are considerable opportunities to be grasped.

Indeed, some inspiring young people are deciding not to bow down to the harsh economic environment, but instead to taking the courageous step of starting their own business.

But here again they are let down. Denied encouragement from their teachers and capital from those in a position to lend, the enterprising dreams of many young people are dashed by the risk-averse who doubt the entrepreneurial potential of the young. Much needs to be done to turn this around.

Last week, David Cameron agreed in principle to the idea of a Youth Investment Fund, by which the Government would give business loans to young people in the same way as it gives loans to university students. Measures like this are very welcome and positive – but they are only the beginning.

As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, ‘We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future’. There has been a demonstrable failure on the first count. We must do everything possible to ensure we do not fail on the second.