Crisis, the Commission admits it: no sign of improvement

Quarterly report on Employment and the Social Situation: unemployed up to 26.2 million, number of families in difficulty increase

The economy struggles, the GNP retracts and the social situation worsens because unemployment continues to increase and consequently general impoverishment grows. In a nutshell this is the content of the quarterly report from the EC on Employment and the Social Situation in the EU. “In many countries there are no signs of improvement,” sustains Jonathan Todd, spokesperson for the European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Laszlo Andor. The reason for this statement is seen in the numbers: in the last quarter of 2012 the employment rate went up in only 8 states out of 27 and in 13 it went down again (in the other 6 it remained stable and Italy is among these 6). The result is that in January 2013 the unemployment rate in the EU reached 10.8% of the active population for a total of 26.2 million people without a job.

The situation in the Euro zone is worrisome: with the period October-December 2012 “a reduction in the employment rate was registered for the sixth consecutive quarter,” the study revealed. This brings January 2013 to 19 million unemployed in the Euro area, equal to 11.9% of the population ages between 15 and 64. A real and true emergency, increasingly serious is that of youth employment: this is where the new record was registered in January. In the whole EU 23.6% under 25 are without work for a total of 5.7 million individuals. This number grew 43% compared to pre-crisis levels in 2008 when there were 1.7 million fewer youth without jobs. But also the so-called NEET (young people under 25 who are neither employed nor in education or job training) increases. Today they calculate 8 million among the under 25’s.

Worrisome data continues: today 25.7% of the population between 55 and 64 is classified as “poverty level or social exclusion.” In all of Europe alarm increases always more during the fourth week of the month: low income families are increasingly higher in number – those who can’t make it to the end of the month. The quarterly report from the Commission registers an increase in the financial difficulty ‘in Bulgaria, Denmark, and Hungary and above all in Italy.” At the end of 2012 Italian low income families in financial difficulty increased 15 percentage points, the largest increase registered in the EU – Ireland, Cyprus, Greece and Spain with increases above 5 percentage points. “The states must invest in human capital,” Todd stresses. “We must provide work in order to bring back (social) sustainability”.
Renato Giannetti