Eurozone unemployment stays at record high

By Christian Oliver in Brussels

Unemployment in the eurozone held steady at a record high for an eighth consecutive month while strong regional divergences revealed the tentative nature of the bloc’s recovery.

The total number of jobless hit 19.24m in November, an increase of 452,000 from a year earlier, according to data released by Eurostat, the European Commission’s statistics bureau on Wednesday.

Still, improved retail sales figures for November offered some room for optimism, rising 1.4 per cent from a month earlier. Portugal, where sales rose 3.1 per cent, and France, where they rose 2.1 per cent, were among the strongest performers.

In terms of unemployment, Germany and Austria recorded the lowest rates, at 5.2 per cent and 4.8 per cent respectively, both unchanged from October. In southern Europe, the picture was bleaker. Italian unemployment rose to 12.7 per cent in November from 12.5 per cent in October, while Spain’s jobless total was stuck at 26.7 per cent.

Greek unemployment has risen to 27.4 per cent in September from 26 per cent a year earlier.

While Europe’s economy has been showing signs of recovery from the financial crisis, joblessness is a persistent concern. While taking heart from some of the eurozone’s positive indicators last year, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, described unemployment of 12 per cent as “far too high”.

Youth unemployment is a particular worry with a rate of 24.2 per cent in the euro area, up from 23.9 per cent a year earlier. Spain had the highest rate of youth unemployment in November at 57.7 per cent. In September, the rate was 54.8 per cent for young Greeks. 

By contrast, the US has been more steadily adding jobs as it recovers. Its unemployment rate now stands at 7 per cent.

Politically, this protracted high unemployment is expected to play an important role in Europe’s parliamentary elections in May, when populist parties from both the left and right, several of them hostile to the EU, are set to prosper. 

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014.