Lagging Indicator: EU Unemployment Tops 26 Million For The First Time

It looks like the EU has been through the worse ... and now things should start getting better ...

Link here to AP news.

For newbies: a few days ago I suggested that the lousy US jobs numbers were foreshadowing the Great Recession of 2013. "Anonymous" corrected me, pointing out that unemployment was a lagging indicator, and as such did not foreshadow anything.

So, with that in mind, back to the story: EU employment has topped 26 million for the first time and unemployment in Greece has soared to 26 percent. These are lagging indicators.

Greece does not have the highest unemployment rate. That distinction goes to Spain with unemployment at 26.6 percent in November. 

At the linked article:

Unemployment in the 17 EU countries that use the euro rose to 11.8 percent in November, as the number of jobless people in the region rose to 18.8 million, the highest figure since the single currency was founded in 1999.

According to data released Tuesday by the EU's official statistics agency, eurozone unemployment was up 0.1 percentage points over October — but up a full 1.2 percentage points from a year ago. The rate for the 27-member European Union was 10.7 percent, the same as in October, but up from 10.0 percent a year ago. The number of unemployed across the full EU topped 26 million.

The figures illustrate the daunting tasks confronting European Union officials. While the threat of a collapse of the eurozone due to too much government debt may have receded, the economies in many EU countries stubbornly refuse to expand and joblessness continues to rise, creating broad social crises.

At 7.8 percent, it looks like Britain's unemployment rate is the same as ours (the US).