Eurozone unemployment unlikely to fall any time soon

Press Releases

24 Sep 2012

Andrea Broughton, Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies comments on today's statistics released by Eurostat:

‘It seems unlikely, given the ongoing financial difficulties of many Eurozone countries, and particularly those with the highest jobless rates, that unemployment will fall anytime soon. Jobs are being lost as a result of efforts to reduce public debt: and countries that are making significant cutbacks in public spending are in no position to try to create jobs by increasing investment in the labour market.

‘Unemployment, and particularly youth unemployment - currently running at 22.8% in August 2012 - is therefore likely to remain high in at least the medium term.’

The latest EU unemployment figures show that the overall rate of unemployment in the Eurozone continues to rise on a year-on-year basis, to 11.4% in August 2012, up from 10.2% a year previously. The unemployment rate in the EU27 has also risen on a year-on-year basis, to 10.5% from 9.7% a year ago. However, the August 2012 figures were stable compared with figures for the previous month.

There continue to be wide discrepancies in unemployment levels between EU Member States - Greece (24.4% in June 2012) and Spain (25.1%) continue to be the countries with the highest levels of unemployment, while at the other end of the scale, Austria (4.5%), Luxembourg (5.2%), the Netherlands (5.3%) and Germany (5.5%) are succeeding in keeping unemployment down.

About Andrea:

Andrea joined IES in 2006 and has over 20 years' experience of research and writing in the areas of employment relations and industrial relations, specialising in international comparative research. Specific areas of interest include workplace-level industrial relations, European social dialogue, employee involvement, restructuring and change management, health and wellbeing issues and work-life balance issues. Andrea has undertaken a number of European labour market research projects.

About IES

The Institute for Employment Studies is the UK's leading independent, not-for-profit centre for research and evidence-based consultancy on employment, the labour market, and HR policy and practice.