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Spain back on top of EU youth jobless table

Alex Dunham
Alex Dunham - [email protected]
Spain back on top of EU youth jobless table
There were 842,000 young Spaniards without a job in July. Photo of young person: Shutterstock "

After nearly three years trailing Greece in the European Union's youth unemployment rankings, Spain is once again the country with the highest rate of under 25s without a job, accounting for a worrying quarter of all jobless youths in the Eurozone.

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July’s Eurostat figures showed 53.8 percent of young people in Spain didn’t have a job compared to 53.1 percent for Greece in May, the latest figures released for the Hellenic nation.

Despite the fact that a considerable number of young Spaniards manage to find temporary work in the service industries during the summer months, there were still 842,000 of them without a job in July.

Whereas the youth unemployment rate in Greece and the rest of the Eurozone has gradually dropped in recent months, Spain saw a 0.4 percent increase from June to July.

In fact, Spain’s jobless youngsters now make up 25 percent of the total 3.3 million for all 18 European countries that use the euro.

Knowing the real situation of youth unemployment in Spain and the EU is hampered by the fact that Eurostat has two ways of calculating the figures.

As former Times and Financial Times correspondent William Chislett told The Local:

There’s the rate, or tasa in Spanish, which takes into account people in the 16 to 24 age group that are employed or are actively seeking work. That’s what gives the 57 percent (May 2013 figures) youth unemployment rate which is so widely publicized.

“And then there’s the unemployment ratio, which includes all young people in Spain, studying or working, and offers a much smaller 22 percent.

“Even if the real figures still remain unclear, it isn’t really fair to measure youth labour force when most 16 to 24 year olds in Spain are still studying.”

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