Unemployment down
| The upswing in the
EU economy continues to reduce unemployment around
the Union. Latest figures show a decline of nearly 1% over the last
year. 7.3% of the labour force were without a job in February and this
represents 17.2 million people. Women continued to fare worse than men
with a rate almost 2% greater at 8.4%. Denmark has the fewest
unemployed at 3.4% while Poland has the most - 11.8%. The USA and Japan
are still doing better at 4.5% and 4.0% respectively. |
|
Big EU differences in female employment
A Eurostat survey of the position of
women and men in the EU has revealed large variations in the rates of
female employment, unemployment, part-time and temporary working. In
all Member States except Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and the UK
unemployment as a percentage of those in the labour market is higher
for women, Poland having the worst record and Denmark the best.
However, even more striking are the employment rates. In Malta only
34.6% of all working age women have jobs compared to 73.2% in Denmark.
Part-time work is far commoner among women at 31.4% of all those in
jobs, compared to 7.7% for men, across the EU. Rates in individual
countries ranged from 2.7% in Bulgaria to 74.7% in the Netherlands.
Temporary jobs are much more evenly shared out at 14.9% of employed
women, 13.8% of men. Again there were large difference between
countries from Romania’s 1.8% to Spain at 37.3%.
