Unemployment Rates Across the the European Union
April 30, 2013
AP - Unemployment across the 17 European Union countries that use the euro has hit a joint new record of 12.1 percent in March.
Here is a breakdown of unemployment across Europe and the eurozone.
European Unemployment Rates (seasonally adjusted, percent) |
Country/Region |
March 2012 |
February 2013 |
March 2013 |
Eurozone (17 countries) |
11.0 |
12 |
12.1 |
Austria |
4.2 |
4.8 |
4.7 |
Belgium |
7.3 |
8.2 |
8.2 |
Cyprus |
10.7 |
13.9 |
14.2 |
Estonia |
10.6* |
9.4 |
n/a |
Finland |
7.6 |
8.1 |
8.2 |
France |
10.0 |
10.9 |
11.0 |
Germany |
5.5 |
5.4 |
5.4 |
Greece |
21.5** |
n/a |
27.2*** |
Ireland |
15.0 |
14.1 |
14.1 |
Italy |
10.4 |
11.5 |
11.5 |
Luxembourg |
5.0 |
5.5 |
5.7 |
Malta |
6.3 |
6.6 |
6.5 |
Netherlands |
5.0 |
6.2 |
6.4 |
Portugal |
15.1 |
17.5 |
17.5 |
Slovakia |
13.6 |
14.6 |
14.5 |
Slovenia |
8.1 |
9.7 |
9.9 |
Spain |
24.1 |
26.5 |
26.7 |
European Union(27 countries) |
10.3 |
10.9 |
10.9 |
U.S. |
8.2 |
7.7 |
7.6 |
*Feb 2012 |
**Jan 2012 ***Jan 2013Source: Eurostat |
April 30, 2013
New York Times — The euro zone jobless rate rose to a record 12.1 percent in
March, a sharp reminder that unemployment remains among the region’s
biggest problems.
The unemployment rate
in the 17-nation currency union ticked up by one-tenth of a percentage
point from February, when the previous record was set, Eurostat, the
statistical agency of the European Union, reported from Luxembourg.
A
year earlier, euro zone joblessness stood at 11 percent.
A separate report
Tuesday from Eurostat showed inflation dropping sharply in the euro
zone, well below the European Central Bank’s target of 2 percent a year.
The annualized rate of inflation for consumer prices was just 1.2
percent in April 2013, down from March, when inflation stood at 1.7
percent.
The reports, along with other recent data suggesting that the economy is
healing more slowly than many had hoped, could prompt the European
Central Bank to take action
at its policy meeting on Thursday. The central bank could cut its key
interest-rate target, already at a record low of 0.75 percent, by a
quarter point, economists say, though the impact of such a move would
probably be slight, because banks remain less than eager to lend.
“Stabilizing the peripheral euro zone countries will take at least until
the end of 2013,” Ralph Solveen, an economist with Commerzbank in
Frankfurt, said. As a result, he said, unemployment would probably keep
rising “until next spring.”
For the 27-nation European Union, the March jobless rate was unchanged,
at 10.9 percent. Eurostat estimated that 26.5 million men and women were
now unemployed in Europe, including 5.7 million young people.
Both the euro zone and European Union jobless figures are the highest
Eurostat has reported since it began keeping the data in 1995 in the
days before the euro. In comparison, the unemployment rate in the United
States was 7.6 percent in March.
Six years after Wall Street’s bad bets on the United States housing
market began to sink the global financial system, the European economy
remains trapped in torpor with little relief in sight. Governments have
tightened the screws on public finances to meet deficit targets, and
companies remain extremely reticent about hiring. The euro zone’s gross
domestic product is widely expected to decline for a second consecutive
year in 2013.
Manufacturers are largely dependent on demand from outside Europe for
growth. Carmakers, which employ about two million people in Europe,
anticipate sales in the European Union this year to fall back to levels
last seen in the early 1990s. In that dismal landscape, PSA Peugeot
Citroën, the French automaker that ranks No. 2 in Europe behind
Volkswagen, said Monday that its unions had agreed to a plan to close a
plant near Paris and to reduce its French work force by more than
11,000.
While a decline in energy prices helped to push the inflation rate
lower, Jennifer McKeown, an economist in London with Capital Economics,
argued that the jobless problem was probably itself part of the reason
for the downward pressure on prices. She said in a note that it would be
“a disappointment” if the E.C.B. failed to ease rates and “announce
further unconventional policies to boost bank lending.”
Two nations are staggering under depression-level jobless rates: Greece,
where the European sovereign debt crisis began, had a rate of 27.2
percent in January, the latest month for which data are available; Spain
had unemployment of 26.7 percent in March. Portugal was next at 17.5
percent. Germany, which has the largest economy in the European Union,
was at just 5.4 percent, with only Austria, at 4.7 percent, lower.
Britain’s rate stood at 7.8 percent, while France’s was at 11 percent.
Mr. Solveen forecasted that the euro zone economy would shrink by 0.2
percent this year, but he pointed to progress in some countries,
including Italy and Spain, in addressing problems that he said would
eventually help turn things around. Still, Spain’s “catastrophic”
unemployment rate is a reminder that its burst housing bubble is still
sapping the economy.
“The correction there has to go on,” he said, “because there is still a huge number of unsold homes.”
Mr. Solveen said that Germany had reduced its dependence on its euro
zone neighbors, and the key to its economic growth was now tied to the
global economy.