across all Eastern Europe have been on an increasing trend from the beginning of 2009 and there are no strong signs of healthy recovery.

According to most recent data from Eurostat, Latvia registers the highest unemployment rate in European Union, with nearly 21% of its active population* currently being in search of a job. Latvia is closely followed by neighbor Estonia, with 15.2% unemployment rate in September ’09; Lithuania ranks 3rd with approximately 14% registered in June this year.

Unemployment rate in 2009: trends

If we take a look at unemployment rate across the past 12 months situation becomes even more interesting and the effects of the economical crisis Eastern Europe is currently crossing are easy to observe: the unemployment rate gap between January and October 2009 in Latvia is at 51%, while Estonia ranks second with 49%. Third country is still Lithuania with 41% growth. At the other end, the countries that are least affected by unemployment rate in 2009 are Romania with 8% growth from January to October, Greece with 14% and Croatia – 16%.

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Looking at

unemployment rate by gender

, the increasing trend changes the ranking a little bit: Estonia registers the highest gap between January and October in terms of unemployment rate amongst males, with 54% increase, then Latvia ranks second (51%) and Lithuania 3rd – 48%. Looking at the

unemployment rate amongst females

, Latvia records the highest growth – 52%, followed by Estonia with 42% and Lithuania with ~35%. At the other end, Croatia is pretty steady in terms of females unemployment rate with only 6% growth in October compared to January; second is Romania with 8% and 3rd Greece with 9%.

All in all, a quick conclusion regarding unemployment rate trend is that

Baltic countries basically doubled the number of active persons out of job in just 10 months’ time

. The other Eastern European countries are all on a steady increasing trend, with an average of 28% growth between January and October 2009, which is higher than EU’s average of ~20%. It looks like 2010 will start with a similar trend in all Eastern Europe – hopefully situation will improve during the next year.

Notes:

* The unemployment rate represents unemployed persons as a percentage of the labour force based on International Labour Office (ILO) definition. The labour force is the total number of people employed and unemployed. Unemployed persons comprise persons aged 15 to 74 who: – are without work

during the reference week; – are available to start work within the next two weeks; – and have been actively seeking work in the past four weeks or had already found a job to start within the next three months.