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| 2000 - 2008
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The Eurozone (EA15) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate stood at 7.1% in March 2008, unchanged compared with February. It was 7.5% in March 2007. The EU27 unemployment rate was 6.7% in March 2008, also unchanged compared with February. It was 7.3% in March 2007 according to the EU's statistics office Eurostat.
German unemployment fell in April for the 27th month in a row as companies took on more employees to work off a backlog of orders for factory machinery.
The number of people out of work, adjusted for seasonal swings, fell 7,000 from March to 3.3 million, the Federal Labour Agency said today. Computer problems mean the actual decline is higher and agency said that the difference will be included in May's tally.
Companies are expanding to meet sales demand from emerging Economies, and in the first-quarter orders rose 4% on the year, the VDMA association of German machine makers said yesterday.
Among the EU Member States, the lowest unemployment rates in March were registered in the Netherlands (2.6%) and Denmark (3.1% in February), and the highest in Slovakia (9.8%) and Spain (9.3%).
Over the last year, twenty-three Member States recorded a fall in their unemployment rate and four an increase. The largest falls were observed in Poland (10.3% to 7.7%), Bulgaria (7.5% to 5.9%) and Slovakia (11.3% to 9.8%), and the highest increases in Spain (8.1% to 9.3%) and Ireland (4.6% to 5.6%). The German rate was 7.3% in March.
The unemployment rate for males fell from 6.7% to 6.3% between March 2007 and March 2008 in the Eurozone and from 6.7% to 6.2% in the EU27. The female unemployment rate declined from 8.6% to 8.0% in the Eurozone and from 8.1% to 7.3% in the EU27.
In March 2008, the youth unemployment rate (under-25s) was 14.5% in the Eurozone and 14.6% in the EU27. In March 2007 it was 14.9% and 15.7% respectively. The lowest rates were observed in the Netherlands (5.0%) and Denmark (6.8% in February), and the highest in Greece and Italy (both 21.8% in the fourth quarter 2007).
The unemployment rate was 5.1% in the USA in March 2008, and 3.9% in Japan in February 2008.
Full details from Eurostat
- The Eurozone (EA15) consists of Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia and Finland.
The EU27 includes Belgium (BE), Bulgaria (BG), the Czech Republic (CZ), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Estonia (EE), Ireland (IE), Greece (EL), Spain (ES), France (FR), Italy (IT), Cyprus (CY), Latvia (LV), Lithuania (LT), Luxembourg (LU), Hungary (HU), Malta (MT), the Netherlands (NL), Austria (AT), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Slovenia (SI), Slovakia (SK), Finland (FI), Sweden (SE) and the United Kingdom (UK).
