Unemployment throughout the eurozone hit a record, statistics revealed, with the numbers for many individual nations following suit. A meeting of financial officials set for August 2 and tough words from European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi days ago promising to do “whatever is necessary” to save the joint currency have boosted hopes that a solution to the crisis will be found, though any action is still likely weeks away.
Bloomberg reported Tuesday that figures released by Eurostat, the statistics office of the European Union showed that unemployment in the region hit a euro-era high of 11.2% in June, up from 11.1% in May. The EU’s numbers indicate that 17.8 million people were without jobs in June; that’s up 123,000 from May.
Individual countries had their own woes to tell, and even in Germany the news was not good as its Federal Labor Agency had depressing numbers to report. Jobless numbers there rose for the fourth straight month. Although unemployment is at its lowest level in Germany in 20 years and wages are on the rise, the number of people without jobs rose a seasonally adjusted 7,000 to 2.89 million as slowdowns elsewhere in the region hit the stalwart German economy.
“To some extent the labor market has been Germany’s active immunization against the ongoing eurozone crisis,” said Carsten Brzeski in the report. Brzeski, senior economist at ING Belgium in Brussels, continued, “However, signs that this immunization is fading away are hard to miss. Employers have continuously downscaled their recruitment plans and employment expectations in the manufacturing industry have dropped.”
In Italy the news was worse. Unemployment there rose in June to its highest level in nearly 13 years to a seasonally-adjusted 10.8%, according to the Rome-based national statistics office, Istat. The young are in particularly dire straits, with those ages 15 to 24 unemployed at a rate of 34.3% in June. In addition, the economy shrank for a third straight quarter for Q1 of 2012. Italy is now in its fourth recession since 2001.
Portugal’s unemployment rate was 15.4%, Ireland’s was 14.8%, and France’s was somewhat better, though still high, at 10.1%. However, the record for unemployment was once again claimed by Spain, which for June posted numbers of 24.8%.