World of Work Report 2013

Under Embargo until 10h00 GMT 3 June 2013

World of Work Report 2013: European Union Snapshot

International Institute for Labour Studies

The EU needs to create 6 million jobs to return to pre-crisis levels but labour market conditions continue to worsen...

• Employment rates have fallen in the vast majority of countries: The EU-27 employment rate (1574)1, at 57.2% in the fourth quarter of 2012, is 1.4 percentage points below the pre-crisis rate (fourth quarter of 2007). In other words, 5.2 million jobs are needed to restore employment rates to their pre-crisis levels. Only 7 of the 27 countries (Austria, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland and Romania) have surpassed pre-crisis employment rates. The declines have been particularly acute in Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and Spain (more than 3 percentage points in the past 2 years). • Unemployment and youth unemployment continues to rise in 2013: In March 2013, the unemployment rate reached 10.9% and the number of unemployed 26.5 million – the latter up from a month earlier and both considerably higher than March 2008. In fact, compared to 5 years ago, the unemployment rate is 4.3 percentages points higher. Reaching alarming levels, youth unemployment stood at 23.5% in March 2013 – compared to 15.5% in March 2008. • Long-term unemployment is increasing and jobseekers are becoming discouraged: As of the fourth quarter of 2012, there were 11.7 million long-term unemployed in the EU. This is 1.4 million more than the year before and 5.7 million more than in 2008. In most EU countries, more than 40% of the unemployed have been without work for more than one year. Many jobseekers have become discouraged and have stopped looking for work: the number of discouraged workers – those who are “inactive” but would like to work – rose by 29%, on average, between 2008 and 2011.

Figure 1. Employment rates in the fourth quarters of 2007, 2010 and 2012 (percentages)

2008Q4 75 70 65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30

Countries where...