BRUSSELS: The employment rate has risen in the EU for the first time since the financial crisis in a sign of the region’s tentative economic recovery.
The proportion of 20 to 64-year-olds in work crept up from 68.4 to 69.2 per cent between 2013 and 2014, although it remained below its pre-crisis peak of just over 70 per cent.
Employment rates increased in almost every EU state, including those with the most damaged labour markets such as Greece, Italy and Spain, although rates in all three countries remained below 60 per cent.
There were also improvements in Europe’s stronger economies: employment rates in the UK, Germany and Sweden rose to 76.2 per cent, 77.7 per cent and 80 per cent respectively.
The figures add to evidence of a nascent economic revival in the eurozone, although unemployment remains uncomfortably high at 11.3 per cent and is only forecast to decline slowly. The European Commission forecasts the jobless rate will remain in double digits next year.
“The employment rate is recovering because unemployed people are moving back into employment, which is very encouraging,” said Bert Colijn, senior economist at the Conference Board, a research organisation.
“But obviously … there are still very large gaps between where we were in 2008 and where we are right now, and especially in countries like Greece and Spain it will be a very long time before we come back to the numbers we saw [before the crisis].”
The EU’s target to reach an employment rate of 75 per cent by 2020 also seems “a bit out of the question … any time soon,” he added.
Still, the improvement in employment rates will boost hopes the eurozone will recover some of the output lost during the years of economic stagnation that followed the crash.
