During the first quarter of 2009, 219,390 announced job losses were announced across the EU. The UK recorded the highest number of announced job losses (63,314), followed by Poland (38,975), Germany (17,461) and France (11,779). For the third quarter in a row, auto manufacture is the sector with the greatest reported ERM job loss (23,584 jobs). Other sectors with large restructuring-related job loss were retail (21,740) and financial intermediation (16,778) and machinery manufacture (16,432).
Unemployment has also spiked up very sharply in other Member States, notably in the three Baltic Member States (up between 6-9 percentage points over the last twelve months) and Ireland (5 p.p.). While the changes are less dramatic in remaining Member States, data for the most recent three months confirm that unemployment is increasing in nearly all Member States though at a slower pace in member states such as Germany, France, Austria and the Netherlands where there has been widespread recourse to short-time working, partial unemployment and other forms of working time flexibility.
One small ray of light in recent ERM data is that levels of announced job creation have grown in each of the last two quarters and are now nearly double the level they were at their recent low point in the third quarter 2008. Of the 89,625 announced job gains in the previous quarter, a significant proportion were in bargain retailers and chain restaurants whose fortunes appear to prosper as those of the economy around them deteriorates.
In its latest edition, the quarterly also looks at collective redundancy notification data as an alternative data source on restructuring and presents some data from a selection of member states (SE, SK, HU).