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Unemployment

Answer

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.Letter from Karen Dunnell, Dated February 2009:"As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how the UK ranks against other EU member states in terms of (a) the change in the rate of unemployment and (b) the change in the rate of unemployment for 16 to 24 year olds in the last year for which figures are available. (254489)""Comparable unemployment rates for EU Member States are estimated and published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, using data derived from the Labour Force Survey in each country. The latest quarterly estimates and annual changes are provided in the attached two tables. Countries are ranked in order of the size of the annual change in each case.""The Eurostat definition of unemployed persons includes those aged 15. Estimates excluding 15 year olds are not readily available for most countries. Therefore the figures provided include those aged 15 for all countries except the UK and Spain."

Unemployment rates, by EU member state and age, seasonally adjusted
Table 1: People aged 15 to 74¹, ranked in order of change on year
Country	Latest period		Unemployment rate² (percentage)	Change on year (percentage points)
Spain	Q4	2008	13.7	5.1
Estonia	Q4	2008	8.5	4.4
Latvia	Q4	2008	9.3	3.8
Ireland	Q4	2008	7.8	3.1
Lithuania	Q4	2008	7.2	3.0
Denmark	Q4	2008	4.2	0.9
Sweden	Q4	2008	6.8	0.9
Luxembourg	Q4	2008	4.7	0.6
United Kingdom	Q3	2008	5.8	0.6
Italy	Q3	2008	6.7	0.5
Hungary	Q4	2008	8.2	0.5
Cyprus	Q4	2008	4.0	0.2
France	Q4	2008	8.0	0.2
Portugal	Q4	2008	7.9	0.1
Belgium	Q4	2008	7.1	0.0
Finland	Q4	2008	6.5	-0.1
Netherlands	Q4	2008	2.8	-0.1
Austria	Q4	2008	3.8	-0.3
Czech Republic	Q4	2008	4.5	-0.3
Malta	Q4	2008	5.8	-0.3
Slovenia	Q4	2008	4.3	-0.3
Romania	Q3	2008	5.8	-0.6
Greece	Q3	2008	7.5	-0.7
Germany	Q4	2008	7.2	-0.8
Bulgaria	Q4	2008	5.3	-0.9
Slovakia	Q4	2008	9.2	-1.4
Poland	Q4	2008	6.5	-2.0
¹ People aged 16 to 74 for the UK and Spain.
² The unemployment rate is the number of people unemployed as a percentage of the total number of people employed and unemployed.
Source:
Eurostat

Table 2: People aged 15 to 24¹, ranked in order of change on year
Country	Latest period		Unemployment rate² (percentage)	Change on year (percentage points)
Estonia	Q4	2008	21.9	14.4
Lithuania	Q4	2008	18.1	10.7
Spain	Q4	2008	28.7	9.9
Ireland	Q4	2008	17.7	8.3
Latvia	Q4	2008	16.7	8.1
Denmark	Q4	2008	10.5	4.2
Sweden	Q4	2008	22.1	3.3
France	Q4	2008	20.8	2.7
Hungary	Q4	2008	21.6	2.2
Czech Republic	Q4	2008	10.9	1.8
Luxembourg	Q4	2008	17.1	1.7
Slovakia	Q4	2008	20.9	1.4
United Kingdom	Q3	2008	15.3	1.0
Finland	Q4	2008	17.0	0.8
Cyprus	Q4	2008	10.3	0.5
Italy	Q3	2008	20.6	0.4
Netherlands	Q4	2008	5.4	0.0
Portugal	Q4	2008	16.2	0.0
Slovenia	Q4	2008	11.5	0.0
Belgium	Q4	2008	18.0	-0.2
Malta	Q4	2008	11.9	-0.7
Greece	Q3	2008	21.9	-0.8
Austria	Q4	2008	7.0	-0.9
Germany	Q4	2008	9.8	-1.0
Romania	Q3	2008	18.9	-1.5
Poland	Q4	2008	17.1	-1.7
Bulgaria	Q4	2008	11.7	-3.0
¹ People aged 16 to 24 for the UK and Spain.
² The unemployment rate is the number of people unemployed as a percentage of the total number of people employed and unemployed.
Source:
Eurostat

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

487 c2060-2W; 254489

Session

2008-09

Subjects

Unemployment

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk