Short-term trends. Unemployment. Unemployment in the Community. 1991.10

Abstract

The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in the European Community is estimated by Eurostat, after correction of the differences between national meth-ods of recording unemployment, at 8.9% for the month of August 1991, com-pared to 8.8% the previous month. In relation to August 1990, the rate of unemployment has increased by half a per-centage point (8.4% to 8.9%) which corresponds to a rise of 7% over the 12 months. However this rise in the rate of unemployment differs greatly depending on the age and sex of those unemployed: an increase of 13% among males aged 25 years and over compared to +4% among females aged 25 and over and +5% among young persons of both sexes. These three groups, each of which is of the same order of magnitude, continue to have considerably different levels of unemployment, differences which are only diminishing at a very slow rate: the unemployment rate is only 5.8% among males aged 25 years and over (5.1% in August 1990) while it stands at 9.5% among fe-males of the same age (9.1% in August 1990) and 16.8% for young persons as a whole (16.1% in August 1990). Young males are in a slightly more favourable situ-ation (15.1% in August 1990) than young females (18.6%)