EUROPA - Press Releases - May 2009 Euro area unemployment up to 9.5% EU27 up to 8.9%

STAT/09/97

2 Ju ly 2009

May 2009
Euro area unemployment up to 9.5%
EU27 up to 8.9%

The euro area 1 (EA16) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate 2 was 9.5% in May 2009, compared with 9.3% in April 3 . It was 7.4% in May 2008. The EU27 1 unemployment rate was 8.9% in May 2009, compared with 8.7% in April 3 . It was 6.8% in May 2008. For the euro area this is the highest rate since May 1999 and for the EU27 since June 2005.

Eurostat estimates that 21.462 million men and women in the EU27 , of which 15.013 million were in the euro area , were unemployed in May 2009. Compared with April, the number of persons unemployed increased by 385 000 in the EU27 and by 273 000 in the euro area . Compared with May 2008, unemployment went up by 5.111 million in the EU27 and by 3.400 million in the euro area .

These figures are published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities .

Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in the Netherlands (3.2%) and Austria (4.3%), and the highest rates in Spain (18.7%), Latvia (16.3%) and Estonia (15.6%).

Compared with a year ago, all Member States recorded an increase in their unemployment rate. The lowest increases were observed in Germany (7.4% to 7.7%) and the Netherlands (2.8% to 3.2%). The highest increases were registered in Estonia (3.9% to 15.6%), Latvia (6.1% to 16.3%) and Lithuania (4.7% to 14.3%).

B etween May 2008 and May 2009, the unemployment rate for males rose from 6.7% to 9.3% in the euro area and from 6.4% to 8.9% in the EU27 . The female unemployment rate increased from 8.2% to 9.7% in the euro area and from 7.4% to 8.9% in the EU27 .

In May 2009, the youth unemployment rate (under-25s) was 19.6% in the euro area and 19.5% in the EU27 . In May 2008 it was 15.0% in both zones. The lowest rate was observed in the Netherlands (6.6%), and the highest rates in Spain (36.9%) and Latvia (28.2% in the first quarter of 2009).

In May 2009, the unemployment rate was 9.4% in the USA and 5.2% in Japan .

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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).

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.

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 April 2009 unemployment rates for the euro area and the EU27 have been revised. The rates published in News Release 79/2009 of 2 June 2009 was 9.2% for the euro area and 8.6% for the EU27. Among Member States, the rate has been revised by between 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Cyprus, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and the United Kingdom, and by 0.7 percentage points for Belgium. There were larger revisions, downwards, for Latvia (of around two percentage points) and Lithuania (of around four percentage points). 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, Finland and Sweden up to and including May 2009.

For the Netherlands up to and including March-April-May 2009 (3-month rolling average).

For the United Kingdom up to and including February-March-April 2009 (3-month rolling average).

For Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia up to and including 2009Q1.

For Ireland and Luxembourg up to and including 2008Q4.

Greece, Italy and Romania: quarterly data for all series.

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

Provisional data: the Swedish Labour Force Survey was amended in April 2005 to take further account of the EU harmonised methodology. This break in the series may affect the reliability of the seasonal adjustment .

Issued by:

Eurostat Press Office

Johan WULLT

Tel: +352-4301-33 444

eurostat-pressoffice@ec.europa.eu

For further information on data:

Hubertus VREESWIJK

Tel: +352-4301-34 323

Remko HIJMAN

Tel: +352-4301-35 357

estat-monthly-unemployment@ec.europa.eu

Eurostat news releases on internet: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat

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

Figures and graphics available in PDF and WORD PROCESSED

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED UNEMPLOYMENT RATES (%)

TOTALS

	May 2008	Nov 2008	Dec 2008	Jan 2009	Feb 2009	March 2009	April 2009	May 2009
E A16	7.4	8.0	8.2	8.6	8.8	9.0	9.3	9.5
EU27	6.8	7.5	7.6	8.0	8.3	8.5	8.7	8.9
BE	6.6	7.0	7.2	7.5	7.7	8.0	8.2	8.2
BG	5.8	5.1	5.4	5.6	6.0	6.3	6.5	6.5
CZ	4.3	4.5	4.7	5.1	5.5	5.8	6.0	6.1
DK	3.1	3.8	4.1	4.4	4.6	5.1	5.5	5.7
DE	7.4	7.1	7.2	7.3	7.4	7.5	7.7	7.7
EE	3.9	7.6	8.4	9.8	11.1	12.4	14.0	15.6
IE	5.5	8.2	8.7	9.4	10.1	10.6	11.1	11.7
EL 4	7.5	7.9	7.9	8.7	8.7	8.7	:	:
ES	10.5	14.0	14.7	15.6	16.5	17.3	18.0	18.7
FR	7.6	8.2	8.4	8.6	8.8	9.0	9.1	9.3
IT 4	6.8	7.0	7.0	7.4	7.4	7.4	:	:
CY	3.5	3.8	4.1	4.2	4.4	4.7	5.1	5.3
LV	6.1	10.3	11.3	12.4	13.2	14.1	15.3	16.3
LT	4.7	8.2	9.0	10.1	11.1	12.0	12.9	14.3
LU	4.8	5.3	5.5	5.8	5.9	6.1	6.3	6.4
HU	7.7	8.1	8.4	8.8	9.2	9.7	10.0	10.2
MT	6.0	6.2	6.1	6.4	6.6	6.8	7.0	7.1
NL	2.8	2.7	2.8	2.8	2.9	3.1	3.2	3.2
AT	3.6	4.1	4.2	4.2	4.3	4.3	4.3	4.3
PL	7.2	7.0	7.1	7.5	7.7	8.0	8.1	8.1
PT	7.6	7.9	8.2	8.5	8.8	9.1	9.3	9.3
RO 4	5.7	5.9	5.9	6.2	6.2	6.2	:	:
SI	4.4	4.3	4.2	4.5	4.8	5.3	5.7	5.9
SK	9.7	9.2	9.3	9.7	10.0	10.4	10.8	11.1
FI	6.3	6.7	6.8	7.0	7.3	7.6	7.9	8.1
SE 5	5.6	7.0	7.0	7.4	7.7	8.1	8.5	8.9
UK	5.3	6.3	6.5	6.8	7.1	7.2	:	:
NO	2.5	2.8	2.9	3.0	3.1	3.2	3.1	:
US	5.5	6.8	7.2	7.6	8.1	8.5	8.9	9.4
JP	4.0	4.0	4.3	4.2	4.4	4.8	5.0	5.2

: Data not available Source: Eurostat

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED UNEMPLOYMENT RATES (%)

Youth (under 25's)				Males				Females
May-08	Mar-09	Apr-09	May-09	May-08	Mar-09	Apr-09	May-09	May-08	Mar-09	Apr-09	May-09

EA1 6

15.0

18.9

19.3

19.6

6.7

8.8

9.1

9.3

8.2

9.4

9.6

9.7

EU27

15.0

18.8

19.2

19.5

6.4

8.4

8.7

8.9

7.4

8.6

8.7

8.9

15.9

22.1

22.3

21.8

6.2

7.6

7.7

7.8

7.1

8.5

8.8

8.7

13.8

14.1

14.4

14.6

5.5

6.6

6.8

6.9

6.1

5.9

6.0

6.1

9.5

12.7

13.2

13.7

3.5

4.9

5.0

5.1

5.5

6.9

7.3

7.5

7.6

9.2

9.5

9.7

2.6

5.6

6.2

6.4

3.7

4.5

4.8

4.9

9.9

10.9

11.1

11.2

7.4

8.0

8.2

7.3

7.0

7.1

EE 4

8.0

24.1

4.2

15.0

17.0

19.5

3.6

9.8

10.9

11.6

22.9

24.1

25.5

6.4

12.8

13.5

14.3

4.3

7.8

8.0

8.4

EL 4

21.5

24.2

4.9

6.2

11.3

12.3

23.4

34.9

35.9

36.9

9.1

16.9

17.7

18.4

12.4

17.8

18.4

19.0

18.3

22.8

23.5

23.9

7.1

8.6

8.8

8.9

8.2

9.4

9.5

9.7

IT 4

21.1

24.9

5.5

6.2

8.7

9.0

CY 4

8.7

11.1

3.0

4.4

4.9

5.2

4.1

5.1

5.3

5.4

LV 4

10.1

28.2

6.0

17.2

18.7

20.0

6.2

11.0

11.7

12.4

LT 4

11.6

23.6

5.4

14.7

16.1

18.0

4.0

9.2

9.7

10.3

17.3

19.7

20.0

20.5

4.0

5.4

5.5

5.7

5.9

7.1

7.2

7.3

19.5

25.5

26.4

26.8

7.4

9.8

10.1

10.3

8.0

9.5

9.8

10.1

12.2

14.3

14.9

15.0

5.7

6.2

6.5

6.7

7.8

7.9

8.0

5.6

6.2

6.4

6.6

2.5

3.0

3.1

3.2

3.3

3.4

7.4

8.9

8.4

3.4

4.3

3.9

4.4

4.2

4.3

17.7

18.6

19.2

19.6

6.5

7.3

7.4

7.5

8.1

8.8

8.9

15.7

20.1

20.4

6.5

8.5

8.7

8.8

8.9

9.8

9.9

10.0

RO 4

18.4

19.6

6.6

7.1

4.7

5.0

SI 4

10.5

12.0

3.7

5.5

5.9

6.1

5.3

5.0

5.4

5.7

19.1

22.6

23.7

24.1

8.6

9.4

9.8

10.0

11.2

11.6

12.0

12.4

16.1

19.5

20.2

20.8

5.9

8.1

8.6

9.0

6.6

7.1

7.2

SE 5

17.4

25.3

26.2

27.3

5.2

8.2

8.7

9.1

6.0

8.0

8.4

8.7

14.4

18.4

5.8

8.1

4.8

6.2

6.5

8.7

8.5

2.6

3.4

3.3

2.3

3.0

2.9

13.1

16.3

16.7

17.3

5.7

9.5

10.0

10.5

5.3

7.5

7.6

8.0

4.2

4.9

5.3

5.5

3.7

4.7

4.9

: Data not available Source: Eurostat

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED (in millions)

	May 2008	Nov 2008	Dec 2008	Jan 2009	Feb 2009	March 2009	April 2009	May 2009
EA16	11.613	12.654	12.970	13.513	13.918	14.341	14.740	15.013
EU27	16.351	17.921	18.407	19.235	19.906	20.544	21.077	21.462

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