In our book, First Globals: Understanding, Managing, and Unleashing the Potential of Our Millennial Generation, Joan Snyder Kuhl and I present a number of prescriptions for welcoming Millennials into the workforce. One of my favorites involves the creation of a First Globals Technology Corps, a practical and cost-efficient way of utilizing the special skills of this mobile and techno-savvy age cohort, while at the same time, allowing them to make a real difference in the world.

Pass through the gates of the Bombardier plant in Querétaro and you leave the Mexico of potholed roads and blaring horns behind: welcome to a strangely serene place called North America. In the car park neat lines of vehicles all face the same way—almost unthinkable elsewhere in Mexico.

Right after I graduated from college this past May, I went on a bit of an odyssey. I took a trip to Afghanistan. After being away for three years, I returned to the western part of the country where my family resides. I was struck by how much things had changed for the worse in just three years. Three years ago, there was a lot of employment, a lot of optimism for the future, and an overall hope for a better life. However, this time, complete hopelessness, lawlessness, and uncertainty dominated the atmosphere.

The collective mood of a nation mired in a prolonged economic recession shows many of the symptoms of clinical depression: despair, fatalism, an inability to make decisions, lack of motivation, and irritability. This is one of the impressions I got from a recent trip to Spain and Italy, two nations I know well and visit often. While both countries have recently made small strides on the path to recovery, I nevertheless came away with the strong sense that their economies are in recession and their societies are in depression.

Europe's unemployment crisis, now in its sixth year, has had a profound impact on young people across the Continent, and has become among the biggest economic, political and social challenges facing European leaders. Joblessness among young people is at historic highs, forcing many of them to leave their families and countries in search of jobs abroad, to accept temporary and underpaid work that often has little to do with their education and skills, and to readjust their expectations for their future.

Switzerland is first, Yemen last and Northern Europe the top region in a new evaluation of how nations foster their work forces. The Human Capital Report, released Tuesday by the World Economic Forum, measured 122 countries in four areas — education, health, employment and “enabling environment” — to establish the rankings. The fourth area encompasses subjects such as a country’s legal framework as well as transportation and communications infrastructure, which affect an individual’s ability to work.

When the banking and economic crisis broke around the world in October 2008, few imagined that its recessionary effects would linger for as long as they have. In Europe, and particularly in some eurozone countries, people accustomed to years of relative prosperity have had to get used to harsh government austerity measures, wage freezes and job cuts.