According to statistics recently released by Eurostat, the level of unemployment within the Eurozone remained unchanged in November (before Latvia’s entry to the bloc on New Year ’s Day) at 12.1% of the workforce. This means that some 19.2 million citizens within the bloc were out of work. The picture remains highly fragmented with respect to levels of unemployment across the group of 17 (now 18) nations which share the single currency. Unemployment stands at 4.8% and 5.2% of the workforce in Austria and Germany respectively; whereas in Spain and Greece the percentages are 26.4 and 27.4, respectively.
The young (under 25s) are particularly badly hit by underemployment with 24.2% (almost a quarter) of the young workforce idle across the bloc (again, this figure sees very strong regional differences). More than half of the young people in Greece and Spain are without jobs whereas in Germany only one young person in 25 is jobless. The picture for unemployment has remained largely unchanged for eight months (to November) despite a marginal pick-up in the recovery over the course of 2013.
For the wider EU of 27 nations (excluding Latvia), unemployment stands at 10.9%.
On a brighter note, retail trade within the Eurozone enjoyed their biggest month-on-month increase in 12 years of 1.4%, reversing a decline of 0.4% seen in the October data. Retail sales (excluding motor vehicle fuel and food products) were up by 1.9% and the best increase was seen in Portugal where it rose by 3.1%. Stronger (sustained) consumer spending should produce a demand for workers and alleviate the stubbornly high unemployment figures. However, unemployment will not trend downwards until employers are certain that increased demand for goods and services warrant taking on more employees to meet it.