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The Unemployment Rate in Every Region of Europe

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Re: The Unemployment Rate in Every Region of Europe

#111
post #66
post #36

Two days ago I was watching a German TV show in which the panelists discussed the low-wage-job boom: apparently unemployment is very low (5.6%) but an unhealthy portion of the jobs people are working are low-wage and/or exploitative of labor, and thus not really contributing to long-term social stability. If too many people are working minimum wage and the minimum wage isn't realistic then sooner or later you have a…

true, but things like wages and social standards are other statistics. Additionaly to the mentioned "low-wage-job" boom you have to mention part-time employment. Which does count as employment but doesn't result in the usual 40h+/week.

At least in Germany these things are connected, in that keeping people employed part-time, and not using fixed hours, serves to transfer risk from the employer to the employee, thus further undermining long-term social stability. Not to be too anti-capitalist about it, but one of the reasons societies grant rights to corporations is that they are supposed to move risk away from the workers and thus improve the buffer of economic stability. Obviously it doesn't always work like that in practice.

IANAStatistician, just pointing out that "hey look 5% unemployment" can be a very misleading statistic to use for laypersons.

Re: The Unemployment Rate in Every Region of Europe

#112
post #36

Two days ago I was watching a German TV show in which the panelists discussed the low-wage-job boom: apparently unemployment is very low (5.6%) but an unhealthy portion of the jobs people are working are low-wage and/or exploitative of labor, and thus not really contributing to long-term social stability. If too many people are working minimum wage and the minimum wage isn't realistic then sooner or later you have a…

It's certainly too early to declare "mission accomplished", but people actually going to work and actually earning their own money, rather than being clients in a welfare system, is tremendously important for long-term social stability.

Re: The Unemployment Rate in Every Region of Europe

#113
post #22

Strange choice of color scheme

What is strange about it?

Low numbers go towards red, high numbers towards blue. Often, red implies something bad so that's a bit confusion. I guess it's the standard scheme for low/high numbers at eurostat.

Re: The Unemployment Rate in Every Region of Europe

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some countries' job centers put jobless people into bullshit training courses that do nothing for them, but being in a course means you are not counted as "looking"/"available" for a while. Other countries do not do this. The "same restrictions" apply, but countries in the first category will have fewer "unemployed" people even if they have the same number of discouraged/underemployed/jobless/whatever people. Is that…

> but being in a course means you are not counted as "looking"/"available" for a while Are there enough people to whom that distinction applies to be more than statistical noise relative to the other regional variations that would have an impact? Seems like a minor nit to pick in the grand scheme of things.

Austria is regularly criticized for doing this through such measures and others (pushing people into early retirement as well).

Here is a thing in English that seems to come for free if you give them bogus personal data: https://www.agenda-austria.at/en/publication/austria-the-lan...

A longer German blurb about this study is here: https://www.agenda-austria.at/oesterreich-das-land-der-verst...

They claim 250,000 hidden unemployed for 220,000 "official" unemployed for Q1 2013, i.e., the official figures would be off by a factor of more than 2. But they don't say how many of those hidden unemployed are in training courses. Maybe the full study does say, I can't be bothered.

Re: The Unemployment Rate in Every Region of Europe

#115
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that apply to the european regions listed here? How significant are the differences in population density that they make a tangible difference?

For example, the regions of higher unemployment in the south of Belgium make up more than half of the territory, but contain only about a third of the population.

Area FI1D, Northern and Eastern Finland, is the largest NUTS2 region by land area you see on this map. It covers about two thirds of Finland (>200 000 km², about 3 times the size of Republic of Ireland), and has a population of 1.29 million people. Unemployment is ~10 %. Population density is a bit over 5/km²

This area is not very significant in terms of number of people, unemployed or not, but it is very visible on the map (also due to map projection which enlarges northern areas).

(The four NUTS2 regions in continental Finland have roughly the same population, the fifth one Ahvenanmaa/Åland has a population of 30,000 people).

Re: The Unemployment Rate in Every Region of Europe

#116
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Spain. People are obviously working. Otherwise there would be riots in the streets already, haha.

Yep, I have many friends who are officially unemployed; all are working. Quite hard as well. The system in Spain does not encourage paying taxes, starting companies or hiring people legally. It is quite bad but I do not see it fixed soon.

Same in Italy. What a shame.

Re: The Unemployment Rate in Every Region of Europe

#118
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No - to be on the dole you need to be actively searching for a job in most jurisdictions in Europe. E.g. in the UK you need to go down to the job center every week and prove you're searching for a job in order to claim unemployment benefit. It's literally called jobseeker's allowance to reflect that. Also what is a "government job market program"? Are you referring to a government employing people en masse to inflate…

JSA is being replaced by universal credit. People on UC need to spend 35 hours per week on their job search, and they need to be able to demonstrate this. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-... > You should think of jobseeking as a full-time job. You will be expected to look or prepare for work for 35 hours a week, depending on your circumstances. This requirement is robustly enforced. I ment…

"..some people in the UK who think that unemployed people in the UK can get away with not doing anything."

As someone who was unemployed for a while in the late 90's, it was possible. I believe the system is a lot stricter now but a lot of people base their ideas on past experience.

I have a friend who has been long-term unemployed due to health reasons. He has to attend courses and such from time to time, which he actually enjoys because he would like to work. He does a bit of voluntary work too.

The story all seems to be the same though, on the first day there are maybe 20 people who turn up and by the end of the week most of them have dropped out.

I don't know the facts but, just guessing, maybe there are still ways of playing the system?

Re: The Unemployment Rate in Every Region of Europe

#119
post #2

Meh blog post. Here's the interactive chart at Eurostat: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/RCI/#?vis=nuts2.labourmar...

The definition of "unemployment" is important here. it An unemployed person is defined by Eurostat, according to the guidelines of the International Labour Organization, as: > someone aged 15 to 74 (in Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway: 16 to 74 years); > without work during the reference week; > available to start work within the next two weeks (or has already found a job to start within the next thr…

> but not actively searching a job (because they are on the dole)

Depends on the country, but in most to draw the dole you have to be "actively searching for a job" (at least in the sense that would count for these stats).

What this figure _would_ exclude would be retired people and those on permanent disability.

Re: The Unemployment Rate in Every Region of Europe

#120
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education?. Really?. "Regarding Europe’s other large countries, the proportions were 47.1% for Britain, 31.9% in Germany (which retains a strong tradition of technical education), 43.6% in France, 40.1% in Spain and 39.1% in Poland." http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2013041...

From that article Ireland is the most highly educated country in Europe, I never would have guessed that.

Third level education was free until recently and is still far, far cheaper than cost. It's also a fairly wealthy country.
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