Spain records the highest unemployment level in the EU

Spain records the highest unemployment level in the EU

Spain records the highest unemployment level in the EU. Credit: Pixabay

For the last seven consecutive months, Spain has recorded the highest level of unemployment in the EU

According to data from the European Active Population Survey, published this Tuesday, February 1, by Eurostat, Spain finished 2021 with the highest unemployment figure in the entire European Union.

An unemployment level of 13 per cent was recorded in December, a figure that is only close to Greece at 12.7 per cent, and which, moreover, is double the European average of 6.4 per cent.

If the Spanish records are compared with those of the largest economies in the European Union: Germany, Italy, France, and the Netherlands, it can be seen that the recovery in Spain was somewhat slower.

Italy and Germany had already returned to their pre-pandemic unemployment levels in June of last year, France had to wait until September, and the Netherlands until October. Unlike Spain, the average of the euro zone countries had already recovered in September, and the EU average did so in October.

As for youth unemployment, Spain closed last year with 30.6 per cent unemployment, a figure 1.3 points below the level recorded in February. Despite the fact that the level of youth unemployment had already recovered in August, in December, Spain was the country with the highest percentage of the population unemployed under 25 years old.

The speed at which Spain has recovered in labour matters does not correspond to the GDP growth registered by the country in that same period. This is a phenomenon that causes some confusion among experts.
With December’s data published on Monday 31 by Eurostat, Spain was clearly the country that was furthest from recovering its GDP prior to the arrival of the coronavirus of all those that have published data to date.
National production is still four percentage points below the level of the fourth quarter of 2019, the last before the pandemic. Among those who have published figures, only Germany on 1.5 points, Austria on 1.1, and Italy on 0.5, had not yet fully recovered in December.
On average, the EU and the Eurozone have already recovered their pre-pandemic GDP, as reported by 20minutos.es.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

Comments


    • Naimah Yianni

      02 February 2022 • 09:13

      Well we have an economy where huge numbers of people are employed in tourism and hospitality. If the government stopped closing these industries down with continuing covid measures then perhaps the employment figures would improve. They are not making things easy.
      Similarly they need to stop punishing the self employed and small businesses – it’s these people who create jobs, not governments.

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