Brussels, 27/08/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Community's Statistical Office in Luxembourg (Eurostat) has published a new publication entitled "Employment and the Labour Market in the Countries of Central Europe", the goal of which is to control the relevant tendencies and developments in the 13 countries of Central Europe, that is to say the 10 countries of Central Europe - Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia - and the 3 countries also taking part in the PHARE programme - Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The publication generally adopts a comparative approach turning to the different aspects of developments in employment and the labour market throughout these regions. It comprises a section on "source of data and methods", which describes European standards of enquiries into labour forces, as well as national conformities, and three analytical sections (with some salient points):
1. Recent trends on the labour market: Developments in employment were negative in all candidate countries in 1999 and 2000, expect for Hungary, Lithuania and Slovenia. In 2000, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia had the highest levels of employment of all countries of Central Europe with close to 2/3 of the working population in jobs, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria had the lowest levels with less than 50% of the working population in work. Employment rates for women in 2000 in Central Europe were some 30 percentage points lower than those of men, with the greatest difference in the Czech Republic (56.8% against 73.1%) and the lowest in Lithuania (58.5% to 61.8%).
2. Regional labour markets: regional employment levels differ more than national ones, going from 71.4% in Prague to 42.3% in the South East of Bulgaria. The regional unemployment level was lowest in Prague, with 4% and the highest in North East Bulgaria with 27.9%.
3. Specific topics: Youth unemployment: the highest levels of youth unemployment were found in Bulgaria (39%), Poland (36%) and Slovakia (37%) and the lowest in Hungary (12%). Young women do best on the labour market than their male counterparts, the advantage for women being most noted in Slovakia and Bulgaria, whereas only in Poland is their unemployment rate lower. On average, two young unemployed persons out of three were registered with public employment bureaux, a level, however, that varies from 90% in the Czech Republic and Slovakia to 25% in Estonia and Lithuania.
The databases of the enquiries also allowed for the establishment of chronological series both national and regional with additional indicators.
The publication (No. 1, June 2001, 64 pages, ISSN 1563-2113) is available free of charge in English, French and German from shops of Eurostat data, of the EC's Office of Official Publications (L-2985 Luxembourg) or on the Internet at http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat or e-mail: icon@inconinstitute.de