Week 14, 2013: EU Youth Unemployment Comparison

Summary: Eurostat released their monthly unemployment report yesterday.  There was not much good news for anyone, but youth unemployment in particular remains at shockingly high levels in many European countries.

What does the chart show? The chart shows the youth unemployment rate (in %) for each of the 27 EU countries. The red bar shows the latest available monthly figure (February 2013 for most of them; January for Estonia and Hungary; and December for Greece, Cyprus, Latvia, Romania, Slovenia and the UK). The blue bar shows the figure for the same period a year ago. Eurostat defines the youth unemployment rate as the percentage of the population aged between 15-25 (16-25 for Spain, Italy and the UK) who are currently looking for work but unable to find any.

Why is the chart interesting? It is interesting to compare this chart with one we produced at the beginning of the year on overall unemployment in the EU. Many of the same countries are at the top and bottom of this list, but the scale is completely different.  In Greece, youth unemployment has almost reached 60%, and it is not far off that in Spain either.  In all but 5 countries (Austria, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Netherlands) the youth unemployment rate is at least double that of the total rate. In Luxembourg, Romania and Sweden, it is more than triple the overall unemployment rate.  Across the whole European Union, a generation of young people are disproportionately carrying the burden of the recession.