Spain's Unemployment Continues To Rise While German Unemployment Falls

Edward Hugh:

Spain's EU harmonised seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate (which is the interesting number) rose again in July, according to the latest data from Eurostat. It rose to 20.3% from 20.2% in June.

So despite a double digit fiscal deficit, Spain has not yet succeeded in putting a brake on the upward drift in the headline unemployment number.
And the number of those officially working continues to decline, according to the data on those paying insurance contributions from the Social Security Ministry.

 
 
Clearly having broken the 20% barrier the number looks like heading up even further in the second half of the year, although quite how far up is hard to say, since my feeling is that some of the increase in unemployment is now being offset by the silent march of feet, heading for the door, and looking for employment abroad.
 

 
Euronews:
 
The headline unadjusted figure – most commonly used in Germany – was down by 4,000 at 3.188 million.


The total adjusted for seasonal factors was down for the 14th straight month. The unemployment rate remained steady at 7.6 percent of the working population.

But there are worries about the effects of a further global slowdown on Germany’s export reliant economy.

Heinrich Alt of the Federal Employment Agency said: “There are still some very considerable risks in the world economy and in the German economy. The situation in the US, for instance, is bleak and there are many heavily indebted nations. There are liquidity problems as well as inflation and deflation fears. On the whole, there are quite a lot of risks.”

Economists said Germany will not be able to sustain its recent high growth rates but the slowdown should not be dramatic enough to have a major impact on the labour market. Separately, the EU statistics office Eurostat released figures showing unemployment totals throughout the euro zone in July were unchanged at 10 percent of the workforce for the fifth month running.


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