Poor manufacturing data from Italy, Spain, France and Germany erodes early gains
on European markets, while eurozone unemployment hits a record high of 10.9pc.....Unemployment in the
eurozone reached a record high again in March as spending cuts
continued to hit the working population. For all 17 nations in the eurozone, the
jobless rate rose again to 10.9%, the highest since the euro was formed in 1999,
Eurostat said. For the eurozone, 17.4 million are now looking for work and more
than 3 million of those are under 25. Italy's unemployment rate reached a
12-year high, up to 9.8%. And in a surprise move, the jobless rate in Germany
rose to 6.8% in March, official figures showed, having been expected to stay at
the previous month's 6.7% after six months of declines. The number of Germans
out of work is now at 2.87 million.For the whole of the European Union,
including countries such as the UK and Denmark, the jobless rate is
10.2%.
Austerity or growth
... Last week, Spain said that the number of job seekers rose for
the eighth month in a row in March to hit 5.6 million, a record rate of 24.4%.
Spain has the highest unemployment rate in the European Union and it is expected
to rise further this year. Spain and Italy are both in recession and have seen
borrowing costs rise, raising the prospect that they may need help or even
bailouts. A debate is raging in Europe about whether politicians have
prioritized austerity at the expense of economic growth, making recovery even
harder for themselves.
4 comments:
Rising unemployment and plunging business confidence in the euro area revealed the increasingly fragile state of the region's economy on Wednesday, as voters in France and Greece prepare to deliver their verdict on austerity in Sunday elections.
Official figures showed that unemployment across the 17-member single currency zone increased by 169,000 in March, for the 11th consecutive month, to hit 17.37m. The unemployment rate was 10.9%, the highest level in its history.
Even in Germany, which has so far largely escaped unscathed from the downturn sweep of the labour market, unemployment began to tick up in March, though it remained at just 5.6% of the workforce.
There was also evidence that businesses are being hit by what many analysts expect to be a eurozone-wide recession. The manufacturing PMI for the zone in April – a measure of confidence among businesses – registered a sharp decline, from 47.7 to 45.9, the lowest since June 2009, and well below the 50 mark which signals growth.
The sharpest declines were seen in Italy and Spain. But the PMI reading for Germany also slipped, to a 33-month low of 46.2, suggesting that Europe's largest economy is being dragged into the malaise that is afflicting its austerity-ravaged neighbours.
Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at consultancy Capital Economics, said: "The latest data on the state of the eurozone labour market and manufacturing sector underline the enormity of the challenge facing policymakers to respond the growing calls for growth across the region."
Neil Mellor, currency strategist at BNY Mellon, said: "The bottom line is, Europe needs growth, there is no growth, and austerity may be part of the answer, but not without demand."
As Lucas Papademos, Greece's technocratic prime minister, who was drafted in at the height of the country's sovereign debt crisis, prepared to bow out and return to teaching at Harvard after Sunday's elections, more than one in five of the Greek workforce – 21.7% – are unemployed.
Rising youth unemployment is one thing here in the UK but what about the prospects of the 50 plus generation like myself who have recently lost their jobs. After being made compulsory redundant at the age of 52 I am still unemployed in my specialist job after six months. After reading the DWP report for 50 plus jobseekers getting another job will be difficult. The government needs to be looking at generating work programmes for 50 plus people who can be reskilled in new jobs such as green technology and anything digital. Both young and old unemployed need help from private manufacturing industry to generate jobs for the future so that our country can become competitive and become profitable for future generations.
This is the rich vs the poor. If Europe swings back to Socialist we will see more employment, lower taxes for the middle and lower incomes and therefore more demand. This may cause a inflation, but we can handle that, we need growth so it's a price worth paying. If the rich win the elections ie central parties, right parties, then they will continue to protect the rich ,and the money they have invested in banks, bonds and the stock market, and we will all suffer.
This is a class war people, the have's want it all, we must stop them and take back some power via democracy. If this fails, then things will start to fall apart, Europe first, then the countries with the most debt and unemployment. I hope we win.
i suspect many employers in the UK actually are very happy to see the higher unemployment in Europe. It means lots of well-behaved, well-educated, multiple-languages-speaking, undrunk, healthy young workers are available for hiring. Look for many of these youth to march over to the UK. Who would you hire: an ill-educated, gobby slapper with a weight problem or a young Spanish university grad with polite manners and speaking at least two languages?
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