Europe

Comparing U.S. and European Unemployment Rates

February 17, 2020 by Tim McMahon

Often we get complacent and think that our situation is the same (or very similar to) other developed countries. But that is not always the case. Today we are going to look at how the unemployment rate in the U.S. compares to that of Europe.

In the following chart created by Statista from data supplied by “Eurostat” and “National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (France)” we can see that Europe itself is not one unified block with identical (or even similar) unemployment rates.

The data in this graphic is from the end of 2019 when unemployment rates in the United States were at 3.5%. We can see that the countries in yellow had comparable unemployment rates to the U.S. i.e. Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands. Britain, Romania, and Bulgaria were in the high 3’s with the surprise being the Czech Republic coming in at a scant 2.0%. According to an article in The Atlantic, the 2017 elections decimated the “Left and Center” leaving the moderate right and the anti-immigrant far-right. So we are free to conclude that without the influx of cheap labor from Northern Africa, that all of the rest of Europe welcomed with open arms, the Czech Republic has record low unemployment as only native Czech’s are competing for the jobs.

One of the other surprises is that [Read more…] about Comparing U.S. and European Unemployment Rates

European Unemployment Rates Q3- 2018

December 11, 2018 by Tim McMahon

According to the most recent Eurostat numbers only four European countries made it into the lowest bracket of unemployment i.e. 2.3%-3.8%. They were Czechia, Germany, Hungary and Poland. However, if the range was 1/10% lower (i.e. 3.7%) there would only be two members since Hungary and Poland were both at 3.8%. Also several countries do not report to Eurostat on a timely manner and so they are not included. Typically Italy and Turkey have Unemployment rates near the highest end of the scale.

The highest reported Unemployment rate is [Read more…] about European Unemployment Rates Q3- 2018

EU Unemployment Nearing Pre-Recession Levels

August 1, 2018 by Tim McMahon

Way back in the first quarter of 2008 European Union (E.U.) unemployment bottomed at 6.8%. Then as the world slid into recession unemployment began climbing, ultimately peaking at 11.0% in the first half of 2013. From there it has gradually declined to 7.1% as we can see in this chart created by Statista.

During the same period U.S. unemployment levels were considerably lower with a bottom of 4.4% (roughly 2/3rds the EU level) in October & December 2006 and again in March and May of 2007. And then we see that U.S. unemployment peaked earlier i.e. in October 2009 (compared to 2012-13 for the EU) and at a lower level 10.1% for the U.S. compared to 11.0% for the E.U. Interestingly the U.S. unemployment rate actually shot up faster in that it reached 10.1% in 2009 while the E.U. was still around 9% at that time. But then the U.S. rate turned down while the E.U. unemployment rate continued upward for another 3 years!

Currently the U.S. rate isbelow 2006-07 levels while the E.U. rate has not yet reached 2007 levels. And current U.S. levels are roughly 56% of E.U. levels.

Why are E.U Unemployment Levels So Much Higher?

This makes us ask a few questions:

Why are U.S. unemployment levels consistently lower than E.U. levels?
Why did U.S. unemployment levels rise faster than E.U. levels?
Why did E.U. unemployment levels take longer to fall? [Read more…] about EU Unemployment Nearing Pre-Recession Levels