Spanish unemployment tops 17%

Spanish unemployment tops 17%
Spain posts the E.U.'s highest unemployment rate, with more than 4 million out of work.

Unemployment hits 25-year high

Unemployment hits 25-year high Jobless rate hits 8.1% in February as a record-high 12.5 million people are unemployed.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The U.S. economy continued to hemorrhage jobs in February, bringing total job losses over the last six months to more than 3.3 million, and taking the unemployment rate to its highest level in 25 years.
The government reported Friday that employers slashed 651,000 jobs in February, down from a revised loss of 655,000 jobs in January. December's loss was also revised higher to a loss of 681,000 jobs, a 59-year high for losses in one month.
Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of 650,000 jobs in February.
"The economy is headed south with a vengeance," said Kurt Karl, head of economic research for the U.S. unit of insurer Swiss Re.
The unemployment rate rose to 8.1% from 7.6% in January. It was the highest reading since December 1983 and higher than economists' projections of 7.9%.
Most workers who have jobs today are not old enough to have worked in a labor market this bad, while 13% of workers weren't even alive the last time unemployment was at this level.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/06/news/economy/jobs_february/index.htm?postversion=2009030610

Franse werkloosheid onverwacht sterk gestegen

Franse werkloosheid onverwacht sterk gestegen


(Source DFT, De Telegraaf) PARIJS (AFN) - De werkloosheid in Frankrijk is in het laatste kwartaal van vorig jaar onverwacht sterk gestegen tot 8,2 procent van de beroepsbevolking. Dat maakte het Franse bureau voor de statistiek donderdag bekend.
Een kwartaal eerder zat 7,6 procent van de Franse beroepsbevolking zonder baan. Analisten hielden voor het vierde kwartaal rekening met een stijging tot 7,7 procent. Het aantal werklozen in Frankrijk nam, afgezien van de overzeese departementen, in de laatste drie maanden van het jaar met 187.000 toe tot bijna 2,2 miljoen.
Werkgevers verwachten dat de werkloosheid de komende maanden door de economische recessie steeds sneller zal oplopen. Vorige week maakte het Franse ministerie van Werkgelegenheid al bekend dat er alleen in januari van dit jaar alweer 90.000 nieuwe werklozen bij zijn gekomen.

French January jobless figures at historic high
Wednesday 25 February 2009
The number of unemployed people in France jumped 90,200 in January (+4.3%), according to figures released by the economic ministry.

Fed downgrades economic forecast for this year

Fed downgrades economic forecast for this year, warns of long road to recovery

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve on Wednesday sharply downgraded its projections for the country's economic performance this year, predicting the economy will actually shrink and unemployment will rise higher.
Under the new projections, the unemployment rate will rise to between 8.5 and 8.8 percent this year. The old forecasts, issued in mid-November, predicted the jobless rate would rise to between 7.1 and 7.6 percent.
The Fed also believes the economy will contract this year between 0.5 and 1.3 percent. The old forecast said the economy could shrink by 0.2 percent or expand by 1.1 percent.
The last time the economy registered a contraction for a full year was in 1991, by 0.2 percent. If the Fed's new predictions prove correct, it would mark the weakest showing since a 1.9 percent drop in 1982, when the country had suffered through a severe recession.
The bleaker outlook represents the growing toll of the worst housing, credit and financial crises since the 1930s. All of those negative forces have plunged the nation into a recession, now in its second year.
"Given the strength of the forces currently weighing on the economy," Fed officials "generally expected that the recovery would be unusually gradual and prolonged," according to documents on the Fed's updated economic outlook.
Against that backdrop, unemployment -- now at 7.6 percent, the highest in more than 16 years -- will keep climbing and stay elevated for quite some time, the Fed predicted.

For now, Fed officials are more worried about falling prices, than rising ones.
The Fed didn't use the word "deflation," which is a dangerous bout of falling prices, but officials noted "some risk of a protracted period of excessively low inflation."
Falling prices sound like a gift at first -- at least to consumers. But a widespread and prolonged decline can wreak more havoc on the economy, dragging down Americans' wages, and clobbering already-stricken home and stock prices. Dropping prices already are hurting businesses' profits, forcing them to slice capital investments and lay off workers.
America's last serious case of deflation was during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Japan was gripped with a period of deflation during the 1990s, and it took a decade for that country to overcome those problems. More on Finance/Yahoo