Unemployment rates in the EU regions ranged from 1.3% to 30.1% in 2019

Unemployment in the EU regions: In 2019, the year before COVID-19 containment measures were widely introduced by EU Member States, unemployment rates continued to vary widely across the NUTS 2 regions of the EU’s 27 Member States.

Lowest rates

The lowest rates were recorded in four Czech regions: Prague and Central Bohemia (both 1.3%), South-West (1.5%) as well as North-East (1.7%), followed by West Transdanubia (1.8%) in Hungary, two German regions, Upper Bavaria and Tübingen, and one further Czech region, South-East (all 1.9%).

Highest rates

At the opposite end of the scale, the highest unemployment rates were registered in Mayotte (30.1%) an overseas region of France, the Spanish autonomous cities of Melilla (27.0%) and Ceuta (25.8%) and two Greek regions, West Macedonia (24.6%) and Western Greece (24.1%).

Compared with 2018, almost three quarters (74%) of EU’s regions saw their unemployment rate for persons aged 15-74 fall. Almost half (48%) recorded a decrease of at least 0.5 percentage points.

These data on regional unemployment, compiled on the basis of the EU Labour Force Survey, are published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

239 EU regions

Among the 239 EU regions for which data are available, 66 had an unemployment rate of less than 3.4% in 2019, half the average of the EU (6.7%).

They included twenty-two regions in Germany, eleven in Poland, eight in the Netherlands, seven in Czechia, five in Austria, four in Hungary, three in Romania, two each in Belgium and Bulgaria, as well as one each in Italy and Slovakia.

In contrast, 29 regions had an unemployment rate of at least 13.4%, double that of the EU: ten regions in Greece, nine in Spain and five each in France and Italy