EU27 unemployment at record 9.6%

“Unemployment in the EU27 remained at its decade-high level of 9.6 percent in March, the same as the previous month,” reports the euobserver.com. The figure, announced in a 30 April report by Eurostat, represents 23 million, the equivalent of the population of a medium sized country like Romania. The report reveals marked differences between member states, the Brussels-based website notes: “The Netherlands and Austria take up one end of the unemployment spectrum on 4.1 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively. At the other end of the scale, Latvia and Spain are on 22.3 percent and 19.1 percent.” The only country that has seen a rise in employment is Germany, with joblessness down 0.1 percent to 7.3 percent. This is due to the government “offering subsidies to companies putting workers on shorter hours rather than laying them off directly,” euobserver.com writes. However, all other EU member states witnessed a fall.