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THE LATEST EU figures show unemployment in the Eurozone area was at 12 per cent in August – a marginal rise on the previous month, when the seasonally adjusted rate was at 11.5 per cent. Looking at the EU as a whole, the rate was also up slightly — 10.9 per cent, up from 10.6 per cent.
At almost 28 per cent, Greece had the worst unemployment rate, followed by Spain at just over 26 per cent.
Ireland has the seventh worst rate in the EU, at 13.6 per cent, according to the August figures.
Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate increased in sixteen member states, fell in eleven and remained stable in just one — Poland.
The highest increases were registered in Cyprus (jumping from 12.3 per cent to 16.9 per cent) and Greece (24.6 per cent to 27.9 per cent between June 2012 and June 2013).
The largest decreases were in Latvia (15.6 per cent to 11.4 per cent) and Estonia (10.1 per cent to 7.9 per cent).
Youth unemployment for the entire EU in August was 23.3 per cent, compared with 23.1 per cent in August 2012.
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Ireland real unemployment rate is somewhere around 20%.
Probably even more – Imagine what it would be like if 400,000 people hadn’t emigrated.
but how? they told us the recession was over ! you dont think they lied to us do you?
Irish politicians are very lucky that we have the safety valve of emigration otherwise our unemployment rate would be a lot higher.
Don’t panic in Journal HQ ,The ESRI will have a counterfactual report in the afternoon for ya.
Waiting for enda to tell us we are among the best..21st best.
Wow. Mention of emigration again. People emigrate from small countries in large numbers because big cities offer more opportunities for career development. Just the way it is. Example: bumped into many a Norwegian here in London. Obviously here to escape that dire Norwegian economy. Sick to death of article after article and comment after comment in the Irish media which shows only one perspective of emigration. Yawn. The government in Ireland is a complete failure. Especially it’s economic policy. Attack that instead and stop this obsession with emigration.
And what have the people who emigrated got to come back to?
Who says they all want to come back, or any of them for that matter? Irish people have a great opportunity that their grandparents and parents even didn’t have – access to a massive employment market – the opportunity to work in a a vast number of countries. But yet you pick up a copy of the Irish Times here in London and all you read are story after story about someone forced to leave. How many massive international companies are based in London? Would that be a draw at all? London nightlife? London culture? Nah, we were all thrown on a ship and dragged kicking and screaming out of the country. And this issue of bringing up a number of people who’ve emigrated and asking what it would be like if they stayed? – the assumption appears to be higher unemployment. Those people could just as easily rather than be filling jobs could be creating them.
Liam, with all due respect! there will always be a percentage of people emigrating, it’s natural in the higher educated personnel. I live in a town where you’d be lucky now to see guys around from the 22 to 30 age group!
People like yourself might be overviewing that nearly every family in the country has a relation of some kind who has fled the shores, not for the holidays, but in search of a weekly wage. People are tired of the promises this government have promised & fell on their promises. The average monthly wage has decreased by a massive €300 per month! We are a short way away from another Budget & people will be hammered again! We just can’t take anymore punishment for the Bankers & the past government who have all walked away without any punishment or investigation!
So before telling the bread winners of Ireland that you are sick & tired of the immigration story! What else can we offer our hard working students & young workforce? Stay & live with mammy & daddy with no possible future! Have a listen to the people for a change Sir!
Firstly, I never said anyone was moving abroad for holidays.
Second – ‘have a listen to the people?’ Just because you have a few stories of people who’ve left for that reason doesn’t make that fact. All I’m looking for is a more balanced perspective on why people go abroad. I highly doubt everyone knows someone ‘forced to flee.’
As for the wages thing. Yes things are very bad in Ireland. Yes the Government has failed. Drop in wages? Well one of the most popular destinations for emigrants is one of the worst in the EU for a fall in wages. In the past three years only Greece, Portugal and the Netherlands has seen a higher drop in wages. So if people are coming here to escape falling wages, they’d best go home. And of course the British Government has also invested heavily in private banks. And the Government is making cuts. When someone leaves the UK does the British media run a four page special on it? No. The Irish obsession with emigration is bizarre. And frankly it is an insult to people who emigrated from Ireland in very difficult times gone-by to just throw out a figure of 400,000 and suggest that that number of people have left because they couldn’t find work in Ireland – without knowing a single thing about any of those people.
400,000 people in 5 years is a tragedy and hardly a ‘Yawn.’ Maybe a quarter of those might opt to leave for a little change in whatever regard, but the rest? Driven out, generation after generation.
where did the 4.2% of Latvians go?
have your say