(13 April 2015) – The latest Employment and Social Situation Quarterly Review highlights significant positive trends, such as the continuous fall in unemployment, the increase in permanent and full-time contracts, the decline in youth unemployment and also — for the first time since the onset of the crisis — the decline in long-term unemployment.
The economic situation in the EU has started gradually improving nearly two years ago, and most Member States have recently registered positive GDP growth. Employment has started picking up, with improvements now materialising in most sectors.
However, considerable challenges remain, with levels of unemployment still high, and significant differences across Member States.
Unemployment rates still vary a lot across the EU with the lowest unemployment recorded in Germany (4.8%) and Austria (5.3%), and the highest in Greece (26.0% in December 2014) and Spain (23.2%).
The unemployment rate of young people has been falling since 2013 in the EU as a whole and in most Member States, but remains too high (21.1%).