Brussels, 23/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - In the first quarter of 2009, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for young people aged between 15 and 24 stood at 18.3% in the EU27, a rate which is considerably higher than the overall unemployment rate of 8.2%, according to data published on Thursday 23 July by Eurostat. This translates into 5 million young Europeans currently out of work.
In the eurozone, the unemployment rate of the young people was 18.4%, for an overall unemployment rate of 8.8%. In the eurozone, 3.1 million young people were out of work.
Between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, the unemployment rate for young people in the EU27 rose by 3.7 percentage points, whilst the overall unemployment rate rose by 1.5 percentage points. The unemployment rate for young people has grown in all of the member states with the exception of Bulgaria. The sharpest increases in the unemployment rate for young people were observed in Latvia (from 11.0% to 28.2%), Estonia (from 7.6% to 24.1%) and in Lithuania (from 9.5% to 23.6%). The lowest increases were to be seen in Germany (from 10.2% to 10.5%) and in Poland (from 17.8% to 18.2%). (L.C./transl.fl)