2014-11 Unemployment rates in Europe

EuCham – European Chamber lists the unemployment rates in 45 European countries. Unemployment rate is the amount of labour force that is not working and only considers people who are jobless, seeking a job and are actively ready to work if they find one.

Download PDF

 

Detailed Information

EuCham – European Chamber lists the unemployment rates in 45 European countries. Unemployment rate is the amount of labour force that is not working and only considers people who are jobless, seeking a job and are actively ready to work if they find one.

The labour force is the total of the employed and unemployed people in a country and does not include jobless people not seeking work such as full-time students, homemakers and retirees. The rate is calculated as a percentage by dividing the number of unemployed by the total number of individuals currently in the labour force.

According to the EuCham ranking Bosnia & Herzegovina is the European country with the highest unemployment rate at 44%. The countries following in the top 5 with the highest levels of unemployment are Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece and Spain. Norway ranks second from bottom with 3% unemployed, surprisingly leaving Belarus ranked as the country in Europe with the lowest unemployment rate of 0.5%. However, Belarus data may have to be considered carefully, as the country does not use ILO (ilo.org) methods to calculate unemployment.

The unemployment rate is not a perfect economic indicator, though. Limitations to the measure include discouraged workers, people unethically claiming welfare benefits, the underemployed and people working either illegally or in black markets.

In conclusion, EuCham notes that the countries with high unemployment rates are also more prone to undesirable social phenomena such as increase in crime rate, a reduction in life expectancy and increased xenophobia. It is also necessary to make labour markets more flexible to reduce the risk of long-term unemployment, as countries with more flexible labour markets tend to have better indicators.

Table 1: Unemployment rate in Europe, data 2014 Q1

Source: OECD
EuCham Research Department – Compiled by Muneat Mahfud 2014-11-13