Unemployment continues to grow in the European Union, although the pace at which jobs are lost is slowing down, a regular European Commission report revealed on Monday.Growing unemployment as a result of the economic and financial crisis is one of the issues dominating the EU's political agenda, with leaders set to discuss it at a special summit convened in Brussels on February 11.
"Despite improved economic conditions, EU labour markets continue to weaken, although at a more moderate pace than at the end of 2008/beginning of 2009," the report said, while issuing data up to the November-December 2009 period. EU member states had shed 4.6 million jobs in the year up to the third quarter of 2009, the document said. The worst job losses were registered in Latvia, Estonia, Ireland, Lithuania and Spain, where the construction industry collapsed.
Amongst the larger member states, the situation worsened the most in Italy, while France and Germany suffered less. In Britain employment levels were stable and in Poland they increased slightly. The commission recalls that prospects are becoming brighter for Europe's economy, with an improvement in the EU's economic sentiment that has been going on since the spring and firms becoming "less pessimistic regarding their employment expectations."
But despite these promising signals, "the labour market outlook remains unfavourable this year, and will only show a gradual improvement afterwards." The latest figures from the EU's statistical arm Eurostat, published on January 8, show that unemployment climbed to 9.5 per cent in the bloc and to 10 per cent in the 16 countries that have adopted the Euro as a common currency.
In a separate report, the EU executive announced that 17 per cent of population in its member states is at risk of poverty, with an income that stays below the poverty threshold even after welfare payments. The commission pointed out that the figure has been nearly stable since 2005, varying between 16 and 17 per cent. But the latest data published on Monday refers to 2008, a year in which the economic and financial crisis had not made its full impact yet.