One In Three Unemployed Romanians Has Been Jobless For More Than One Year

In Romania, 32.3% of people who had been jobless between July and September 2009, had not worked for more than one year, according to Eurostat. Of these, 13.7% had been jobless for 12-17 months, 5.9% for 18-23 months, 10.6% for 24-47 months and 2.1% had been unemployed for four years or more.

The report says Romania's unemployment rate was 6.8% in the third quarter of 2009, with 698,900 jobless people.

"While there is hope of economic recovery as output starts growing again, the effects of the crisis on the European labor market are far from over. In 2009 Q3, the ranks of the unemployed increased to around 21.4 million in the EU. Many of them lost their job in the past 12 months. But with fewer jobs on offer, the risk of staying unemployed for over a year is real for a substantial number of people. This could result in more social exclusion and poverty," says the study, which uses data on unemployment in the Union in the third quarter of last year.

Eurostat also says the number of jobless in the EU was around 21.4 million in 2009 Q3, many of them having lost their job in the last 12 months. Between July and September, around 3.6 million (17% of the total jobless) had been unemployed for 12-23 months. Also, 3.7 million EU citizens had been unemployed for more than 24 months.

High levels of long-term unemployment (more than two years) were reported in Slovakia (38.4%), Germany (31%), Belgium (29.3%), Bulgaria (25.4%), Italy (26.1%), Portugal (25.5%) and Greece (22.1%).

"With unemployment levels rising across Europe and the number of job vacancies falling, the competition for jobs on the labor market has increased sharply since 2008Q2. In the first half of 2008 there were around 3 million job vacancies available in the EU. On average around 5 unemployed people were competing for each vacancy on the labor market. In 2009Q3, the number of job vacancies in the EU fell to below 2 million. With over 21 million unemployed, this means the competition has increased to over 11 unemployed per vacancy. This could lead to longer unemployment spells for many Europeans in the coming years," the study concludes.

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