REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, LONDON - Unemployment across the 17 EU countries that use the euro hit another record high in April — and appears to be on course to hit 20 million this year in what would be another gloomy landmark for the currency bloc.
Eurostat, the European Union's statistics office, said Friday that the unemployment rate rose to 12.2 percent in April from the previous record of 12.1 percent the month before. In 2008, before the worst of the financial crisis, it was around 7.5 percent.
A net 95,000 people joined the ranks of the unemployed, taking the total to 19.38 million. At that pace, unemployment in the currency bloc — which has a population of about 330 million — could breach the 20 million mark by the end of the year.
Eurozone economies have been suffering because their governments are trying to improve public finances through aggressive spending cuts and tax increases. The problem is they've done it at a time when much of the private sector has been unable to plug the gap in activity left by the retreating state, unlike in the US, which has opted for a more gradual approach to debt reduction.
The unemployment figures mask big disparities among the euro countries. While over one in four people are unemployed in Greece and Spain, Germany's rate is stable at a low 5.4 percent.
The differences are particularly stark when looking at the rates of youth unemployment. While Germany's youth unemployment stands at a relatively benign 7.5 percent, well over half of people aged 16 to 25 in Greece and Spain are jobless. Italy's rate has ticked up to over 40 percent.
The sharpest change in unemployment rates among the 17 euro countries was in Cyprus, which saw its jobless rate rise to 15.6 percent from 14.5 percent.
One of the reasons behind Europe's economic decline is governments' focus on cutting debt aggressively by raising taxes and slashing spending programs. With many governments still pulling back on spending and business and consumer confidence still low, economists do not expect any dramatic recovery to emerge over the coming months.
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