Unemployment rates in the EU NUTS 2 regions in 2015

Regional unemployment rates, compiled by Eurostat on the basis of data from the EU Labour force survey, showed that more than 60% of the NUTS 2 regions of the European Union (EU) recorded a decrease of at least 0.5 percentage points in their regional unemployment rate in 2015 compared with 2014.

Regional unemployment rates varied widely across the 276 NUTS-2 regions of the EU-28 in 2015, with the lowest rates recorded in the German regions of Freiburg and Niederbayern (both 2.5%), Oberbayern and Oberpfalz (both 2.7%), followed by Praha in the Czech Republic (2.8%). At the opposite end of the scale, the highest unemployment rates were registered in Melilla (34.0%) and Andalucía (31.5%) in Spain, Dytiki Makedonia (30.7%) in Greece, Canarias and Extremadura (both 29.1%) in Spain.

Among the 274 EU regions for which data are available, 60 had an unemployment rate of 4.7% or less in 2015, half the average of the EU (9.4%). They included twenty-four regions in Germany, twenty-one in the United Kingdom, five in Austria, three in the Czech Republic, two each in Belgium, Hungary and Romania and one in Italy. In contrast, 29 regions had a rate of at least 18.8%, double that of the EU: eleven regions in Greece, ten in Spain and four each in France (all overseas departments) and Italy.

In 2015, the average unemployment rate for young people aged between 15 and 24 in the EU was 20.4%. Regional differences in the unemployment rate for young people are however very marked. The lowest rates were recorded in German regions, in particular Oberbayern (3.4%), Freiburg (4.7%), Mittelfranken (5.2%), WeserEms (5.7%) and Karlsruhe (5.8%), and the highest in Ceuta (79.2%) and Melilla (72.0%) in Spain. In more than three-quarters of the EU regions, the unemployment rate for young people was at least twice that of total unemployment.

Further information:  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics_at_regional_level.