November 2009Euro area unemployment rate up to 10.0%EU27 up to 9.5%

STAT/10/5

8 January 2010

November 2009
Euro area unemployment rate up to 10.0%
EU27 up to 9.5%

The euro area 1 (EA16) seasonally-adjusted 2 unemployment rate 3 was 10.0% in November 2009, compared with 9.9% in October 4 . It was 8.0% in November 2008. The EU27 1 unemployment rate was 9.5% in November 2009, compared with 9.4% in October 4 . It was 7.5% in November 2008. For the euro area this is the highest rate since August 1998 and for the EU27 since the start of the series (January 2000).

Eurostat estimates that 22.899 million men and women in the EU27 , of whom 15.712 million were in the euro area , were unemployed in November 2009. Compared with October, the number of persons unemployed increased by 185 000 in the EU27 and by 102 000 in the euro area . Compared with November 2008, unemployment went up by 4.978 million in the EU27 and by 3.041 million in the euro area .

These figures are published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union .

Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in the Netherlands (3.9%) and Austria (5.5%), and the highest rates in Latvia (22.3%) and Spain (19.4%).

Compared with a year ago, all Member States recorded an increase in their unemployment rate. The smallest increases were observed in Germany (7.1% to 7.6%), Luxemburg (5.2% to 6.0%) and Malta (6.2% to 7.0%). The highest increases were registered in Latvia (10.2% to 22.3%), Estonia (6.5% to 15.2% between the third quarters of 2008 and 2009) and Lithuania (6.4% to 14.6% between the third quarters of 2008 and 2009).

B etween November 2008 and November 2009, the unemployment rate for males rose from 7.5% to 9.9% in the euro area and from 7.2% to 9.7% in the EU27 . The female unemployment rate increased from 8.6% to 10.0% in the euro area and from 7.8% to 9.2% in the EU27 .

In November 2009, the youth unemployment rate (under-25s) was 21.0% in the euro area and 21.4% in the EU27 . In November 2008 it was 16.6% in both zones. The lowest rate was observed in the Netherlands (7.5%), and the highest rates in Spain (43.8%) and Latvia (36.3% in the third quarter of 2009).

In November 2009, the unemployment rate was 10.0% in the USA and 5.2% in Japan .

• The euro area (EA1 6) consists of Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia 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).

• No n-seasonally adjusted and trend data can be found in the statistical database on the Eurostat website.

• Eurostat produces harmonised unemployment rates for individual EU Member States, the euro area and the EU. These unemployment rates are based on the definition recommended by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The measurement is based on a harmonised source, the European Union Labour Force Survey (LFS).

B ased on the ILO definition, Eurostat defines unemployed persons as persons aged 15 to 74 who:

- are without work;

- are available to start work within the next two weeks;

- and have actively sought employment at some time during the previous four weeks.

The unemployment rate is the number of people unemployed as a percentage of the labour force. The labour force is the total number of people employed plus unemployed.

The numbers of unemployed and the monthly unemployment rates are es timates based on results of the LFS which is a continuous household survey carried out in Member States on the basis of agreed definitions. These results are interpolated/extrapolated to monthly data using national survey data and/or national monthly series on registered unemployment. The most recent figures are therefore provisional; results from the Labour Force Survey are available 90 days after the end of the reference period for most Member States.

Monthly unemployment and employment series are calculated first at the level of four categories for each Member State (males and females 15-24 years, males and females 25-74 years). These series are then seasonally adjusted and all the national and European aggregates are calculated.

Member States may publish other rates such as register based unemployment rates, or rates based on national Labour Force Surveys or corresponding surveys. These rates may vary from those published by Eurostat due to a different definition or methodological choices.

Current deviations from the definition of unemployment in the EU Labour Force Survey:

Spain, Italy, and United Kingdom: Unemployment is restricted to persons aged 16-74. In Spain and Italy the legal age limit for working is 16. Employment data used for Italy includes also those above 74.

Netherlands : Persons without a job, who are available for work and looking for a job are only included in unemployment if they express that they would like to work.

• The October 2009 unemployment rates for the euro area and the EU27 have been revised. The rates published in News Release 170/2009 of 1 December 2009 were 9.8% for the euro area and 9.3% for the EU27. Among Member States, the rate has been revised by between 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points for Bulgaria, France, Ireland, Italy, Latvia and Poland. Larger revisions are observed for the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia and Slovakia. The revisions are primarily caused by the inclusion of the most recent EU Labour Force Survey data in the calculation process and updates to the seasonally adjusted series .

The following LFS data are used in the calculations of the monthly unemployment rates published in this News Release:

For Germany, Italy, Finland and Sweden up to and including November 2009.

For the Netherlands up to and including September-October-November 2009 (3-month rolling average).

For the United Kingdom up to and including August-September-October 2009 (3-month rolling average).

For Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, Spain, Greece, France, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia up to and including 2009Q3.

• Italy recently implemented a method to produce monthly unemployment data purely based on the LFS. For the moment, these data should be considered provisional.

• Estonia, Greece, Lithuania and Romania: quarterly data for all series.

Cyprus, Latvia, and Slovenia: quarterly data for youth unemployment.

• For Finland and Sweden, the trend component is used instead of the more volatile seasonally adjusted data.

Selected Principal European Economic Indicators : http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/euroindicators

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED UNEMPLOYMENT RATES (%)

TOTALS

: Data not available Source: Eurostat

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED UNEMPLOYMENT RATES (%)

: Data not available Source: Eurostat

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED (in millions)