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EUROZONE UNEMPLOYMENT HAS broken another record today with figures for March showing that the rate is now 12.1 per cent, up 0.1 percentage point from February.
Figures from the EU’s statistics agency, Eurostat, show that the unemployment rate for the 27-member European Union was 10.9 per cent in March, stable compared to February.
This means that 26.5 million are unemployed in the EU including 19.2 million within the eurozone.
But both the eurozone – which accounts for the 17 members whose currency is the euro, including Ireland – and the EU show unemployment rates which have risen markedly since March 2012 when they were 11 per cent and 10.3 per cent respectively.
One of the highest unemployment rates is in Spain where over a quarter of the workforce are unemployed – 26.7 per cent – while the lowest is in Austria where just 4.7 per cent are unemployed.
Compared to 12 months ago the unemployment rate increased in 19 EU member states and fell in eight.
The highest increase was recorded in Greece – 21.5 per cent to 27.2 per cent – while Ireland is among the nations to show the largest decrease from 15 per cent to 14.1 per cent.
Eurostat figures put Ireland’s unemployment rate at 14.1 per cent. Live Register numbers published earlier this month showed that Ireland’s unemployment rate was 14 per cent with 2,200 fewer people signing on in March.
The Central Statistics Office is due to publish Live Register figures for April tomorrow morning.
This Eurostat graph maps out the rates of unemployment in all 27 countries (Click here if you are having trouble seeing this image):
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Vote Yes to Lisbon for jobs :-)
Well done Angela your plan to enslave the people of Europe is well underway, as per mein kampf.
IMF came out a few weeks ago and said that including job bridge and all these schemes that are not guaranteed a job for the person at the end of it, including them and people on few week courses, unemployment figure in Ireland stands at 23%.
Were there 2200 jobs created in Ireland or did another 2200 people emigrate?
2200 people made a lifestyle choice!
Iceland 5.8% versus 7.2% last year, youth 9.7% versus 15.9% and they don’t have jobridge or emigration to mask their true figures. Burning bondholders and not being stuck in a monetary union with an American School neo liberal in control is a big advantage.
Good to see the policy of austerity is working…
It’s a bitter medicine, but the alternative is much worse.
Unless you want you taxes raised, do you?
When the number of people in work starts rising in conjunction with a decrease in unemployment and decreases in those on jobsbridge or Ce schemes them we can say the country is recovering …, unemployment figures are massaged by courses and schemes and most devastating of all the loss of a generation to export
Decrease my a$$..
Time to do stats for the Live Register numbers?
A person close to me works in the social services. What they do is bring people in, then
1. Put them on a short term course = off the Live Register
or
2. Drop their payments for 2 weeks as a warning for “not engaging”. = off the Live Register..
Then when stats are done, back on…
It’s all a scam.
Brian
Let me try to understand what you are saying. You know a low level employee who works at customer facing duties in the Department of Social Protection and they tell you of their participation in deliberate defrauding of citizens entitlements for the purpose of massaging National Unemployment data? Do you realize how childish that allegation is Brian when it is put in plain English? Do you still want to stand over the claim?
Wouldn’t surprise me. Do you know something he doesn’t?
Even figures in medical testing is massaged for a favourable outcome.
Why not this?
What they also do is add numbers to C.E Schemes, TUS Scheme, RSS Scheme God knows how many more scheme the true unemployment number should take into acct the number of people on these schemes which are only temporary – as was said prior keep moving people about
A decrease in Irish unemployment is but little comfort to the nation as a whole-families continue to struggle to pay their mortgages, electricity bills, etc., students cotinue to be forced to leave third level education given an increase in reg. fees (something we were PROMISED would not happen) and politicians continue to put themselves before the people whom they pledged to represent. Was it for this…?
Yeah, without the figures on people emigrating and people coming over here to work in those periods this data means relatively little.
Garth
I fully agree with your understanding of these date but informally I understand that the inward movement of people exceeds the numbers leaving. That would make the Irish performance much better than we thought.
turned so many corners we must be in a maze ,no improvement,waiting for the spindoctors to twist this,.
The euro was really a marvellous idea!
More like falling off a cliff than turning a corner
…one of the many reasons I leave for Austria on 4th of June. :-)
Aidan, you have the best of luck!!!!
We have turned the corner.
I would have to respectfully disagree with you there, David. The aforementioned decrease in unemployment isn’t terribly signficicant in the grand scheme of things. What’s to say that businesses who are just about holding up won’t go to the wall in the coming months, leading to an increase next year? Besides, that’s not to say that those 2200 people who didn’t sign on in March didn’t emigrate. It’s quite vague.
Sarcasm Siobhán. Unfortunately I tend to forget that it isn’t always so obvious through the medium of text.
Haha, sorry, the brain is still struggling against sleep at this time of the morning. :P And, to be honest, there are those who hold that view.
With property and water taxes heading our way rapidly, how can unemployment rates not rise? A government hellbent on taking more and more money from us so as to pay someone else’s debt will only increase unemployment.
have your say