The year-on-year comparison represents a 2.4 per cent increase in numbers employed in Wales compared with a 0.5 per cent increase for the United Kingdom as a whole. This means the employment rate among people of working age in Wales stood at 72.3 per cent, up 0.8 percentage points on the previous year, compared to a drop of 0.1% for the UK as a whole. The figures underline a long term trend. Over the last decade, the increase in numbers employed in Wales has been greater than across the UK as a whole - and, since the creation of the Assembly Government, employment has grown by 147,000.
The Basques though do not compare their statistics with Spain, instead they compare them direclty to those of the European Union because they are competing against all the member states of the EU, just as Wales is.
The unemployment rate in the A.C. of the Basque Country for the second quarter of 2007 was 3.6 percentage points lower than in the Euro Zone countries. According to EUROSTAT- the Statistics Office of the European Union-, in May 2007 the unemployment rate for this area fell by point three per cent during the quarter, to 7.0%. In addition the rate for the European Union as a whole, bearing in mind all 27 member countries in 2007, also came to 7.0%.
Better then for Wales's statistics to be published in the same way - without the need to reference to all things British.
Annette Strauch wrote...
Talking about statistics: You can only compare countries that are similiar or the same. The employment situation in Wales and in England are more or less the same. Social help - there is hardly any in the whole UK for people like me -graduates with a good education, working from contract to contract until one day they might find this permanent job. The Job Centres in Wales are a disgrace, filled with some - not all -incompetent people. If you are unemployed in Germany after let's say being employed with an institution for 3 years and then you are looking for a new job, you get money for living. Here you get about sixty pounds - that means if you are single. Why does your partner have to pay for your food, etc. - the essentials? When I went to the Job Centre once I felt like being kicked in the a###! I live in Wales, I help my partner with photographic exhibitions. We finance everything ourselves - a good print and not a good meal quite often -!! I work very hard and I am not in any statistics. I know a lot about Wales, speak Welsh but get no help. Another fact is: rather than being unemployed in Wales, young people from here move to London!! A good friend, the Rev. Cynwil Williams told me once that in the past if Welsh people wanted to get on in their career, those people would have gone to Cardiff. These days if good qualified Welshmen want to get on with their careers, they go to London.
Statistics are only numbers and often do not reflect the correct situation!
Posted by: Annette Strauch | August 17, 2007 8:48 AM