With Greek unemployment already at a record of 26 percent, a study by the auditing company Ernst & Young showed it could reach 28 percent as part of a trend that projects joblessness will continue the plague the 17 countries of the Eurozone, leaving some 20 million without work by the end of the year, up from 18.7 million.
The study, reported in Proto Thema, said joblessness will continue to be a problem because of a lack of competitiveness among country’s economies, predicting a decline in performance by 0.2 percent, following a fall of 0.4 percent in 2012. “The following year too will be very difficult for the Eurozone,” the study stated.
Grim predictions for Greece and Spain
The auditors said that the situation in Greece and Spain will be particularly difficult, with Greece’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) set to fall another 4.3 percent and the economy not to begin recovery until 2015, although Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said it will start this year. The unemployment rate will hit 28 percent this year, it said, although other projections have shown it could reach 30 percent.
Unemployment is also expected to increase because of more pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions imposed by the government as the country entered its sixth year of recession and hundreds of businesses close weekly.
It will be just as bad in Spain, where unemployment is expected to hit 27 percent. The number of unemployed fell by the closing of 2012 but that was attributed to an increase in seasonal and holiday jobs.
Life is much better for workers in Germany, despite a rise in unemployment in the last month of 2012 by 88,000 people. In December, the number of unemployed stood at 2,840,000, with an unemployment rate of only 6.7 percent, according to the Federal Labour Agency.
The increase in unemployment during December is not uncommon, however in 2012 this trend appears stronger. Vacant positions stood at 421,000, most in the fields of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, energy, machine building and transport.
(Source: Protothema, Capital)
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