The chart above shows the unemployment rate in each EU state as of December 2018 (unless otherwise noted). The Czech Republic is the only state with a rate below three percent.
Findings
- The difference between the state with the lowest unemployment rate, the Czech Republic, and the state with the highest, Greece, is 16.5 percentage points.
- The Czech Republic has 0.11 times - or nearly one-tenth - the unemployment rate that Greece does.
- The median unemployment rate in the 28 EU states is 5.25 and the mean 6.30.
Caveats
- Data is from December 2018 except for Estonia and Hungary which are from November 2018 and Greece and the United Kingdom which are from October 2018.
- All figures are rounded to the nearest hundredth.
Details
Seven EU states have an unemployment rate below four percent which traditionally has placed inflationary pressure on wages. Sixteen have a rate between four and eight percent, and five have a rate above eight percent which means that at least nearly one-tenth of the population is out of work and seeking it.
What is concerning is that this supposedly cohesive economic bloc has such a large range in unemployment rates where the highest rate is nearly nine times larger than the lowest one. This surely is a failure of the EU as a whole in not being able to address it as this disparity has been going on for a while now.
Sources
Eurostat. 2019. "Unemployment by Sex and Age - Monthly Average." Accessed February 6, 2019. http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKMARK_DS-055624_QID_6C6753DD_UID_-3F171EB0&layout=TIME,C,X,0;GEO,L,Y,0;S_ADJ,L,Z,0;AGE,L,Z,1;UNIT,L,Z,2;SEX,L,Z,3;INDICATORS,C,Z,4;&zSelection=DS-055624SEX,T;DS-055624UNIT,PC_ACT;DS-055624S_ADJ,SA;DS-055624AGE,TOTAL;DS-055624INDICATORS,OBS_FLAG;&rankName1=TIME_1_0_0_0&rankName2=UNIT_1_2_-1_2&rankName3=GEO_1_2_0_1&rankName4=AGE_1_2_-1_2&rankName5=INDICATORS_1_2_-1_2&rankName6=SEX_1_2_-1_2&rankName7=S-ADJ_1_2_-1_2&sortC=ASC_-1_FIRST&rStp=&cStp=&rDCh=&cDCh=&rDM=true&cDM=true&footnes=false&empty=false&wai=false&time_mode=NONE&time_most_recent=false&lang=EN&cfo=%23%23%23%2C%23%23%23.%23%23%23.