Unemployment across the 19 nations which use the Euro (the Eurozone) remained at an average figure of 10.2% in April. Over a longer time span, it has eased from 11% a year earlier, but still remains extremely heterogeneous. Across the whole of the EU’s 28 member states, average unemployment stands at 8.7%, having eased from 8.8% in March.
Within the Eurozone, the besieged Greek economy continues to endure the highest level of unemployment of any nation at 24.2% of the workforce. However, even in Greece, the unemployment situation is slowly improving, having fallen from 25.8% in February of last year.
In Spain, unemployment stands at 20.1%, down from 20.3% in March. Italy has seen unemployment increase from 11.5% in March to 11.7% in April. Portugal saw unemployment remain unchanged at 12% in April whilst in Ireland it eased from 8.6% to 8.4%
In France, where unions are engaged in protests against planned labour reforms designed to make hiring and firing easier, unemployment eased by 0.2% in April over the March figure to stand at 9.9%.
The lowest level of unemployment is to be found in the Czech Republic, unchanged over the March figure of 4.1%, according to Eurostat. Germany currently has 4.2% unemployment, on the Eurostat model of calculating the figure. However, the German Federal labour office believes that unemployment eased from 6.3% in March to 6% in April which represents the best level of employment seen in the country since German reunification in 1990 (although unemployment is still higher in what was East Germany compared to its western counterpart).
Eurozone unemployment is currently at its lowest level since august 2011 and unemployment across the wider EU is at its lowest level since April 2009. The average unemployment figure for the Eurozone is 9.78% (1995-2016; range 7.2 – 12.1%).
In comparison, on the Eurostat model, UK unemployment stood at 4.9% in February 2016, having eased from 5.0% in January.