Percentage of young people out of work continues to rise

Employment was flat in both the eurozone and EU28 in July with the percentage of young people out of work continuing to rise.

The percentage of the labour force out of work dropped very slightly in August compared to July, but 16 countries experienced an overall increase over the past 12 months and there was a drop in 11.

Employment Commissioner László Andor said that while unemployment may have stopped increasing over the summer months, the data available for the second quarter of 2013 show that job creation is not yet picking up.

“The nascent economic recovery is very fragile and certainly not job-rich yet,” he said.

He urged surplus countries, such as Germany, to support demand, including by increasing wages, and for the fiscal consolidation process to be stretched in weak economies to provide greater space for structural reforms.

Proactive employment policies were crucial now, such as hiring subsidies, reduced taxation and social security contributions on low-paid labour, individualised job-search support and training while the Youth Guarantee needed to be implemented urgently, he said.

“Further progress in resolving the current economic and financial crisis is essential to encourage greater investment in the drivers of growth, both in the ‘core’ and the ‘periphery’. Companies needed access to finance and governments needed to be able to step up targeted investment in greening the economy, research, development and innovation, and up-skilling and reskilling the workforce”, he said.

The euro-area seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 12% in August, down from 12.1% in both June and July, while for the EU28 it was 10.9%, down from 11% in July.

But the numbers without a job rose by 882,000 in the EU28 and by 895,000 in the euro area in August compared to August 2012 bringing the total to 26.59 million and 19.17 million respectively.

Greece and Spain continue to have the highest rates of unemployment, with the rate continuing to rise in Greece to 27.9% in June, up from 24.6% a year ago.

For Spain the figure is 26.2%. Ireland continues to hold seventh place with 13.6%, while Austria records the lowest at 4.9%.

While there was a drop in the number of those under 25 years of age registered as unemployed, the percentage out of work in August increased year-on- year to 23.3% in the EU28 and 23.7% in the euro area.

The lowest rate is in Germany (7.7%) and the highest is in Greece at 61.5% followed by Spain at 56%.