Bad news on the employment front again in Europe, as joblessness keeps creeping up. November numbers out today from Eurostat show unemployment of 10.7% for the 27 European Union countries, and 11.8% for the 17 euro zone countries—up from 11.7 in October. The EU figure remained stable from October. The statistics show more than 26 million people out of work in Europe, with some 154,000 people losing their jobs over the past month alone. The figures are more alarming when compared to the same period in 2011, when there was 10% unemployment across the EU, and 10.6% across the euro zone. Here are the country abbreviations for the chart above:
Belgium (BE), Bulgaria (BG), the Czech Republic (CZ), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Estonia (EE), Ireland (IE), Greece (EL), Spain (ES), France (FR), Italy (IT), Cyprus (CY), Latvia (LV), Lithuania (LT), Luxembourg (LU), Hungary (HU), Malta (MT), the Netherlands (NL), Austria (AT), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Slovenia (SI), Slovakia (SK), Finland (FI), Sweden (SE) and the United Kingdom (UK)
Yet again this month, Southern Europe is suffering the most, with Spain (26.6% unemployment) and Greece (26% unemployment) out front. (Greece’s numbers are from September). Compared to a year ago, unemployment increased in 18 EU countries with Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Portugal increasing joblessness at the fastest rates. There was some good news today: seven countries have increased employment over the year-to-year period with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania showing the biggest gains. See the full report here (pdf).