Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Unemployment in Euroland

This morning the unemployment number for the aggregate Eurozone came in. 10.1%. It kinda shocked me b/c I remember looking at German unemployment a while back and thinking: Wow, that's a low price, errr, I mean, that's pretty low.

So when this number came in I wanted to see how German unemployment compares to Eurozone unemployment as a whole. The spread graph is below.

The disparity has never been greater since inception of the Euro. It'll be interesting to see how that evolves over the next few years as
a) there will be structural adjustments likely in "peripheral Europe" (i.e. the PIIGS.)
b) the falling Euro supports net exporters, benefiting countries like Germany and hurting countries like Greece or Spain.
c) in the other direction, how will labor mobility affect this as workers move from high-unemployment areas to low-unemployment areas.