Impact
Ideas for teaching using international labour market macrodata
The global economic crisis has had an effect on everyone, but the consequences have varied from country to country. In numerous European countries we have seen sovereign debt crises, high unemployment rates and severe austerity cuts which have led to protests in Greece, Spain and Portugal. However, in the US, the result has been a sharp rise in unemployment. Indeed, data from the OECD’s Main Economic Indicators April 2012 edition shows unemployment in the US rising to the same level as that in Europe.
The OECD has a number of different measures of unemployment. The graph below uses the harmonised unemployment rates. The harmonised unemployment rates give the numbers of unemployed persons as a percentage of the labour force. The labour force consists of employees, the self-employed, unpaid family workers and the unemployed.
Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (2012): Main Economic Indicators (Edition: April 2012). Mimas, University of Manchester. doi: dx.doi.org/10.5257/oecd/mei/2012-04
Taking a closer look at Europe, you can see the differences between countries. The early 90s recession affected many countries, for example Finland and Spain experienced high levels of unemployment, but other countries such as Germany were unaffected. The graph below also shows how the global financial crisis has caused high unemployment in Spain and Greece, while unemployment rates in countries such as Germany and Finland have remained steady.
Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (2012): Main Economic Indicators (Edition: April 2012). Mimas, University of Manchester. doi: dx.doi.org/10.5257/oecd/mei/2012-04
Young people continue to bear the brunt of the job crisis in the Euro-zone. Data from Eurostat show that youth unemployment is more than double that of the general population across the OECD and in some countries such as Greece and Spain the youth unemployment rate reached 50 per cent by the end of 2011. Youth unemployment is of particular concern to policy-makers as it places young people at risk of prolonged inactivity at what should be the start of their careers, jeopardising longer term livelihoods.
Eurostat (2012): New Cronos (Data downloaded: 25 April 2012). Mimas, University of Manchester. doi: dx.doi.org/10.5257/eurostat/nc/2012-04-25