G20 unemployment rates

The recently concluded G20 meetings in South Korea from the point of view of the media focused on the failure to secure an agreement about exchange rates and rebalancing export surpluses in some countries with chronic trade deficits in others. This remains an important area. But so too is the fact that most of the member countries who together account for 90 % of the world's GDP and 80 % of its trade are still suffering from high rates of unemployment. These rates are given below and what is striking about them is except for Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan and South Korea and urban China the rates are very elevated.All rates except where indicated are for late summer or fall 2010.

Country                                                                   Rate of unemployment

Argentina                                                                  8.7 %
Australia                                                                    5.4  (October)
Brazil                                                                         6.2  (Sept.)
Canada                                                                      7.9  (October) (7.6 Nov.)
China                                                                         4.3  (2010 est.)
France                                                                        10.0
Germany                                                                     6.7
India                                                                           10.7 (2009)
Indonesia                                                                    7.7
Italy                                                                            8.1
Japan                                                                          5.0
Mexico                                                                       5.7 (May)
Russia                                                                        6.8 (June)
Saudi Arabia                                                              11.7 (males only)
South Africa                                                               24
Republic of Korea                                                       3.7
Turkey                                                                        10.5 (June)
U.K.                                                                            7.7
U.S.                                                                             9.6( 9.8 Nov.)
E.U.                                                                             9.5


Note that within the E.U. the following countries have very elevated rates of unemployment
Spain 20.8 %
Greece 14.5
Ireland 14.1
Portugal 10.7
Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia also had rates above 10 %. In the EU 27 the total number of people unemployed exceeds 23 million people. It is also notable that youth unemployment for people under the age of 25 hoping to get started on their careers, the unemployment rates are above 20 and even 30 % in a number of European countries including 37 % in Spain, 25 % in Greece, 24 % in Ireland and 20 % in Portugal. There are over 6 million unemployed young people between the ages of 15 and 25 in the U.S., U.K,Italy, Spain and France.Lowering the rate of unemployment should be a top priority.There should be special programs targeted at people beginning their careers aiming to assist them and potential employers in engaging them for initial 6 month to one year contracts to gain both income and work experience.

So the picture is still that of world largely mired in excessive unemployment with several brighter spots where growth continues to be more robust and unemployment dropping.It is still a world desperately in need of more public sector stimulus.and private sector job creation. Austerity policies which have been foolishly adopted in a few countries and which risk being promoted in the U.S. and Western Europe are very definitely a very bad idea .