The Covid-19 pandemic is estimated to have generated some 900,000 new unemployed persons in the first 3 months of the health crisis, a significant proportion of them among the so-called ‘frugal’ Member States, according to figures from the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) on Thursday 2 July.
Based on Eurostat figures, trade unions note that 253,000 workers lost their jobs in May. Adding this to the 397,000 jobs in April and the 241,000 in March brings the number of job losses to about 891,000. The total number of unemployed in the EU is now reported to be 14.36 million, of which 2.815 million are young people under 25.
Trade unions also note that in three of the four Member States that are very cautious about the Recovery Plan, namely Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands, some 142,000 jobs are estimated to have been lost over this period, or 15% of the European total. A “huge” share, the trade unions believe, if compared to their share of the European population, which would be 9.5%.
The Confederation recalls that trade unions in these four Member States (Denmark is the fourth) have since been urging governments to support the European Recovery Plan. Unemployment is the trees that hide the forest, the union insists: 42 million people are estimated to have fallen into short-time work during the health crisis. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)