Brussels, 11/12/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 11 December, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, Eurostat, published data on regional unemployment in 2006 within the 27 EU member states. The data is extracted from a Eurostat report (Statistics in Focus No 124/2007) entitled: “new member states contribute to reducing unemployment in Europe”.
Main points from the 2006 data in the EU27 are: (1) regional unemployment rates varied greatly in 2006 ranging from 2.6% in the regions of North Eastern Scotland (UK) and Bolzano/Bozen (Italy) to 28.5% in Guyana (French overseas department); (2) unemployment among women at regional level was lowest in the regions of Praha (Czech Republic) with 2.7%, Cheshire (UK) 3%, Zeeland (NL) 3.1% and Gloucerstershire, Wiltshire and North Somerset (UK) at 3.2%. This rate was highest in Guyana (32.7%) and in the Spanish region of Ceuta (29.9%). The rate of unemployment among women was higher than that among men in 70% of the regions; (3) the lowest rates of unemployment among young people were noted in the Dutch regions of Noord-Brabant (5.0%) and Gelderland (5.2%), and the highest were notched up in three French overseas departments: Guadeloupe (59.9%), Martinique (56.1%) and La Réunion (50.4%); (4) out of the 266 regions of NUTS2 (Nomenclatures of territorial units for statistics adopted in July 2003), 30 had a rate of unemployment equal or lower than 4.1%, i.e. half of the EU27 average: 9 regions in the UK, 8 in Italy, 6 in the Netherlands, 5 in Austria, one in the Czech Republic, as well as Denmark. Sixteen regions recorded a rate equal or above 16.4%, i.e. the double of that of the EU27: 6 regions of Germany, 4 of France (all overseas departments), 2 each in Slovakia and Poland and one region each in Belgium and Spain. Information: http: //ec.europa.eu/eurostat (G.B.)