Slovakia has the highest rate of unemployment of all EU members

These figures are published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities. Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were registered in Denmark (2.7 %) and the Netherlands (2.9 %), and the highest in Slovakia (10.5 %) and Spain (9.9 %).

Over the last year, twenty-one Member States recorded a fall in their unemployment rate and six an increase. The largest falls were observed in Poland (9.8 % to 7.5 %) and Bulgaria (7.1 % to 5.7 %), and the highest increases in Spain (8.1 % to 9.9 %) and Ireland (4.8 % to 6.0 %).

In May 2008, the youth unemployment rate (under-25s) was 15.0 % in the euro area and 14.9 % in the EU27. In May 2007 it was 14.8 % and 15.5 % respectively. The lowest rates were observed in the Netherlands (5.6 %) and in Denmark (5.8 %), and the highest in Spain (23.9 %), Greece (22.7 % in the first quarter 2008) and Italy (20.8 % in the first quarter 2008). In May 2008, the unemployment rate was 5.5 % in the USA and 4.0 % in Japan.

In opinion of Employment institute, these figures are alarming for Slovakia. It is still truth, that Slovakia has the highest rate of unemployment of all EU members. And what's more, the bigger part of unemployed are without work more than one year and this leads to growing numbers of long-term unemployment. Employment institute consider an application of active policy tools for the best way how to solve that problem.

Suggested citation: Michal Páleník: Europe and its regions in numbers - Slovakia has the highest rate of unemployment of all EU members, IZ Bratislava, retrieved from: https://www.iz.sk/​en/projects/EU-indicators/slovakia-unemployment-highest-EU-may-2008, ISBN: 978-80-970204-9-1, DOI:10.5281/zenodo.10200164