Unemployment rates fell in the majority of the EU regions

USPA NEWS - Just over half of the NUTS 2 regions of the European Union recorded a decrease of at least 0.5 percentage points in their regional unemployment rate in 2014 compared with 2013. The highest unemployment rates were registered in five Spanish regions.

However, regional unemployment rates continued to vary widely across the EU regions in 2014, with the lowest rates recorded in the regions of Praha in the Czech Republic and Oberbayern in Germany (both 2.5%), followed by Tübingen, Oberpfalz, Niederbayern and Unterfranken (all situated in Germany and all below 3.0%). At the opposite end of the scale, the highest unemployment rates were registered in five Spanish regions: Andalucía (34.8%), Canarias (32.4%), Ceuta (31.9%), Extremadura (29.8%) and Castilla-la Mancha (29.0%).

Among the EU regions, 54 had an unemployment rate of 5.0% or less in 2014, half the average of the EU (10.1%). They included twenty-three regions in Germany, sixteen in the United Kingdom, six in Austria, three each in Belgium and Romania and one each in the Czech Republic, Italy and Hungary. In contrast, 29 regions had a rate of at least 20.2%, double that of the EU: thirteen regions in Spain, twelve in Greece and four in Italy.

Youth unemployment rates varied from 3.7% to 70%

In 2014, the average unemployment rate for young people aged between 15 and 24 in the EU was 21.9%. Regional differences in the unemployment rate for young people are however very marked. In the EU in 2014, the lowest rates for young people were recorded in the German regions of Oberbayern (3.7%), Stuttgart (4.7%), Karlsruhe (4.8%) and Freiburg (5.0%), and the highest in Ipeiros (69.8%) in Greece and Ceuta (67.5%) in Spain. In half of the EU regions, the unemployment rate for young people was at least twice that of total unemployment.

The long-term unemployment share, which is defined as the percentage of unemployed persons who have been unemployed for 12 months or more, stood at 49.3% on average in the EU in 2014. In the EU regions, the lowest shares of long-term unemployed were recorded in 2014 in Övre Norrland (14.8%) in Sweden and Bucuresti - Ilfov (15.9%) in Romania, followed by six other Swedish regions. On the other hand, the highest shares were registered in 2014 in six regions in Greece: Attiki (77.3%), Dytiki Ellada (76.7%), Ipeiros (75.8%), Kentriki Makedonia (75.2%), Peloponnisos (73.8%) and Thessalia (73.5%).