Eurozone’s Job Gains Show A Turning Point

“After two quarters of mild economic recovery in the Euro Area, member countries may finally be reaching a turning point in unemployment,” Elizabeth Crofoot, Senior Economist with the International Labor Comparisons program at The Conference Board, said on Thursday.

It’s a game changer, indeed: the unemployment rate remained stable or decreased in all European economies compared. Sweden had the best results (-0.1 percentage points), followed by France (-0.2 percentage points). In France, which reached record unemployment in September, the October decline was the first since March 2011.

But there is still a huge challenge called youth unemployment. Almost 24.4% of Eurozone’s under-25s were jobless in October. That is 3.58 million people. And no matter how governments talk about economies being back on track, this young folks’ perspectives are grim.

The U.S. and Japan, however, are living another story. The fall in U.S. employment – mostly due to household jobs reporting during the government shutdown – was the largest since December 2009. In Canada and Australia, employment remained stable.

In Japan, although jobless rate went up, the main news has been the rise in female occupation rate, which has has risen to a record high 63% among women aged 15 to 64. A positive sign that the country is moving towards the right direction, experts believe. Still, the imbalance by gender remains extremely high: the percentage of men without full-time work is at 21.3% whereas for women it’s at 56.5%.