Joblessness rising in Europe
Spain’s jobless rate hits 24.3%; it’s 51.5% for young people.
Unemployment BRUSSELS — in the 17 countries that use the euro stayed at a record high 11 percent in April, with rates continuing to climb in Spain, Portugal and Greece.
Friday’s figures came in the wake of last week’s European Union summit, where some leaders called for measures to boost growth and employment to offset the impact of stringent austerity policies. Experts argue that targeted measures could help get people, especially young people, off the unemployment lines.
In recession-hit Spain, unemployment spiked to 24.3 percent, the worst rate in the EU. It was up 0.2 points since March, and 3.6 percentage points compared to last year. Youth unemployment ballooned to a staggering 51.5 percent, up from 45 percent last year.
European stocks and the euro fell sharply Friday after disappointing employment data.
For the overall 27-nation European Union, the jobless rate was 10.3 percent in April, up from 10.2 percent in March. The figures mask massive internal variation, from Spain’s 24.3 percent down to Austria’s 3.9 percent. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, had a rate of 5.4 percent.
The European figures contrasted with April unemployment of 8.1 percent in the United States and 4.6 percent in Japan.
In other developments:
• With polls showing that his left-leaning party had a good chance of winning Greece’s election later this month, Alexis Tsipras detailed his economic platform Friday, promising his first act would be to annul the terms of the country’s financial rescue packages.
Tsipras, 37, was a minor character in Greek politics until recently. But he appears to be rallying this battered nation around his call to fight off Greece’s foreign creditors.
• Ireland’s voters have agreed to ratify the European Union’s deficit-fighting treaty with a resounding 60.3 percent “yes,” results Friday showed, but government leaders and pro-treaty campaigners alike expressed relief rather than joy because of the stark economic challenges ahead.
• Spain insisted it is financially stable because its debt-laden regions are now meeting deficit-reduction targets. But investors remained worried and kept the government’s bond yields high.