Unemployment is leveling off in the euro area. 10% in March 2010, the unemployment rate adjusted for seasonal variations remain in effect identical to that for the month of February. A year earlier the rate was however lower at 9.1%. The EU as a whole is a bit lower at 9.6% in March 2010, also unchanged from the same month a year earlier, Eurostat said on Friday.
So these are 15 million unemployed in the euro area accounts in March, 23 million for the EU-27. In one year, Germany is the only one EU country to have recorded a decline in unemployment, falling 7.4% to 7.3%. All other countries saw their unemployment rates increase because of the economic crisis.But are Latvia (the rate jumped to 14, 3% to 22.3%), Estonia (from 7.6% to 15.5% between the fourth quarters of 2008 and 2009) and Lithuania (from 8.1% to 15.8% between the fourth quarters of 2008 and 2009), which record the highest increases in the EU low fee pay day loans.
If it were up to now difficult to find a tandance about the evolution of unemployment figures, said Societe Generale's analysts now tend to think that the situation should improve in the second quarter.
It should be noted that the rate of female unemployment is still slightly higher than men (10.1% against 10%), but posted a much lower increase. The youth are always the most affected by unemployment, with a proportion of 19.9% in the euro area and 20.6% in the EU.Spain and Latvia beat on this sad record, with respective rates of 41.2% and 44.9%.