A Tale of Two Continents
Greek workers protesting last month about job losses. Unemployment in Greece is currently over 18 percent contributing heavily to record high levels of joblessness in the euro zone
The good news first: the U.S. economy added 200,000 jobs last month. That dropped the headline unemployment rate to 8.5 percent from 8.7 percent. (The broader measure of unemployment, U6, which includes those out of work for more than 12 months and discouraged workers and those with part-time jobs who want full-time work remains in double digits).
The bad news: a record 16.4 million people were unemployed in the euro zone's 17 member states in November. That's 10.3 percent of the work force. In the EU as a whole, including countries like Britain that don't belong to the single currency, the jobless rate is 9.8 percent.
As I reported extensively earlier in the week Spain now has 22.9 percent unemployment. Greece saw a dramatic increase from 13.3 percent unemployment to 18.8 percent unemployment.
The full report is here.