After three years of decline, the EU unemployment rate started to rise in the first quarter of 2008 in the wake of the economic crisis. Since then the unemployment rate, especially for young people, has increased sharply in the EU.
In the first quarter of 2009, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the EU27 for those aged 15-24 was 18.3%, significantly higher than the total unemployment rate of 8.2%. In the EU27, 5.0 million young people were unemployed. In the euro area (EA16), the youth unemployment rate was 18.4% and the total unemployment rate was 8.8%. In the euro area, 3.1 million young people were unemployed.
Youth unemployment rate rising faster than total unemployment rate
Between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, the youth unemployment rate in the EU27 rose by 3.7 percentage points, while the total unemployment rate increased by 1.5 percentage points. The youth unemployment rate increased in all Member States except Bulgaria, where it fell from 13.9% in the first quarter of 2008 to 13.5% in the first quarter of 2009. The largest rises in the youth unemployment rate were registered in Latvia (from 11.0% to 28.2%), Estonia (from 7.6% to 24.1%) and Lithuania (from 9.5% to 23.6%), and the smallest rises were found in Germany (from 10.2% to 10.5%) and Poland (from 17.8% to 18.2%), Malta rose from 13.7% to 14.7%.
This data, published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, comes from a publication issued today on the impact of the economic crisis on EU unemployment.