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Ten views of unemployment around the world

Posted Oct 3rd 2009 1:20PM by Tom JohansmeyerTom Johansmeyer RSS Feed
Filed under: India, China, Employees, Mexico, Japan, Economic data, Recession

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The United States is not alone. We just saw the unemployment rate creep higher to 9.8% for September, and the rest of the world is coming with us.

The worldwide recession is still circling the globe, it seems, leaving slashed jobs in its wake. While the rise in unemployment is essentially a fact of life, how countries are responding to it differs widely. Some are spending aggressively to protect jobs; for example, by chipping in some extra cash to pay for shorter work weeks.

In the 30 countries comprising the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), unemployment is as low as 3.2% in the Netherlands and as high as 17.6% in Spain, as of July 2009.

For the 16 countries in Europe using the euro, unemployment has reached 9.6%, slightly below the September level in the United States. For the OECD as a whole, unemployment is expected to hit 10% in the second half of next year, which will translate to 57 million people without jobs.

Developing economies have been hit hard as well. The jobless rate in Mexico reached its highest level in 13 years, though the situation has eased slightly in Brazil. South Africa is experiencing its worst recession in 17 years, with 25% of the population out of work.

How are different countries handling this? Take a look:

1. Germany
Unemployment is up to 7.7%, as of July, from 7.3% in 2008 (annualized). But, it's down from 8.4% in 2007. Government subsidies have been used to support shorter work weeks as a way to prevent mass layoffs.

2. France
French unemployment reached 9.2% in July, up sharply 7.8% for all of 2008, but it could reach 10% by the end of this year. The government has used measures from selective payroll tax exemptions to short-work arrangements to keep the effects of high unemployment at bay.

3. Britain
The country's unemployment rate has reached a high of 7.9%, an almost 13-year high. By next year, the total number of people out of work is expected to pass 3 million. Fortunately, new job losses are down from the highs seen last spring.

4. Spain
Over the past decade, Spain created a third of all new euro-zone jobs. Now, it has the OECD's highest rate of unemployment.

5. Ireland
Unemployment jumped from 6% last year (and 4.7% in 2007) to 13.3% by July 2009.

6. Japan
Unemployment fell to 5.5% in August from 5.7% in July -- the highest rate since the post-World War II era. But, the number of people without jobs gained 32.7% (to 3.61 million) from a year earlier. Temporary work arrangements have increased substantially, now accounting for roughly a third of the workforce in Japan, which is the world's second largest economy.

7. China
The official urban rate of unemployment hit 4.3% for the second quarter of 2009, but this doesn't include millions of migrant workers and employees furloughed by state companies (but not counted as layoffs). In a workforce of 210 million for the country's urban centers, 9 million were registered as unemployed. The number of migrant workers who lost their jobs could be as high as 30 million, but there's no official tally.

8. India
With 95% of the workforce in the "informal" sector, it's hard to get a sense of the recession's impact on the Indian job market. An official employment survey is conducted only once every five years.

9. Mexico
The country sustained an unemployment rate increase of 6.28% in August -- the highest in more than 13 years. Now, 45 million workers are estimated to be out of jobs, up 4.2% year-over-year. The government is planning reforms to lower costs for investors in public works projects and to cut a bit of the red tape. Also, it is now paying a third of the salaries of auto industry workers as a way to reduce plant layoffs.

10. South Africa
At 23.6% for the second quarter of 2009, the unemployment rate is already sky-high, and that's up from 23.1% from the same period in 2008. This is the country's worst recession since 1992. The rest of the African continent has fared better, though shrinking demand elsewhere in the world is having an effect. Of course, I doubt Somalia's feeling the pinch the way the rest of the world is.

Tags: developing countries, developing markets, developing nations, developing world, inthenews, job losses, jobless, jobless rate, unemployment, unemployment rate

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Last updated: November 24, 2009: 01:26 PM

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