Few young people are unemployed in these EU countries
In May 2020, around 14.4 million people were unemployed in the European Union. According to the statistics agency Eurostat, around 7.4 percent of the employable were without a job.
The rate for EU citizens up to the age of 25 was more than twice as high. About one in seven (15.7 percent) of them were unemployed. This also shows that job cuts in the Corona crisis hit young Europeans particularly hard.
The gap in youth unemployment in Europe is particularly extreme. In Greece, exactly one in three young people (33.4 percent) are unemployed. At the other end of the statistics, less than six percent are affected. In statistics, unemployed are people aged 15 years and older who have been looking for work in the four weeks before the data were collected and who could have taken a job in the following two weeks.
These EU countries have the lowest youth unemployment rate
@imago images / Jochen Tack
/ 9
# 10 Malta
Eurostat last had figures for March for the 32 European countries examined, including Turkey. Malta ranked tenth on the list of countries with the lowest youth unemployment rate. 10.1 percent of those under the age of 25 were looking for a job. The general unemployment rate in Malta was only 3.4 percent in March. That was the fourth lowest value in Europe. Malta ranked youth unemployment ahead of Slovenia (10.3 percent), Austria (10.9 percent) and the United Kingdom (11.8 percent).
@imago images / Imaginechina-Tuchong
/ 9
# 9 Norway
Norway is in ninth place with a youth unemployment rate of ten percent. Here, too, the value was significantly higher than the rate for the total population. Overall, the unemployment rate was only 3.6 percent. That meant sixth place in Europe.
@imago images / Dean Pictures
/ 9
# 7 Denmark & Estonia
Denmark and Estonia were seventh in March, with 9.9 percent each in youth unemployment. In both cases, young people capable of work performed better than the entire country, at least compared to Europe. In terms of general unemployment rates, Denmark was 15th (4.8 percent) and Estonia 16th (4.8 percent).
/ 9
# 6 Poland
Poland had the sixth lowest youth unemployment rate in Europe at 9.3 percent. For the entire population, however, it was only 2.9 percent for third place in a European comparison.
/ 9
# 5 Iceland
Iceland is one of the rare examples where the rankings do not differ between age groups in the international comparison of unemployment statistics. Iceland came fifth overall in both young and working age groups. In percentage terms, however, the general unemployment rate of 3.5 percent is significantly lower than that of the young generation at 8.2 percent.
/ 9
# 4 Switzerland
If it were up to the overall unemployment rate, Switzerland would be 4.4 percent far behind Iceland, in twelfth place in Europe. The youth unemployment rate is 7.7 percent, however, significantly lower than Iceland.
@imago images / Westend61
/ 9
# 3 Czech Republic
The Czech Republic had the third lowest youth unemployment rate in March: 6.4 percent of young people who were able to work were unemployed. This meant that people under the age of 25 were three times more likely to be unemployed than all employable people. With a general unemployment rate of 2.1 percent, the Czech Republic is the lowest in Europe.
/ 9
# 2 Netherlands
6.3 percent of young people in the labor force were looking for a job in the Netherlands in March. This was 2.9 percent of all employable people. In both cases, this corresponded to the second lowest rate in Europe.
@imago images / Jürgen Ritter
/ 9
# 1 Germany
Germany recently had the lowest youth unemployment rate in Europe. According to Eurostat, it was 5.5 percent in March. That was almost a third of the average of the 27 EU countries (14.5 percent). The German unemployment rate for the entire population was 3.7 percent – that means seventh place.
