Indeed, the Baltic States, Belarus, and the Russian parts of the BSR have all experienced growth rates far above the EU 25 average. In the Russian parts of the BSR moreover, unemployment has decreased dramatically since the end of the 1990s. In contrast, unemployment rapidly increased in the German BSR parts and in Poland over the same period. The worst hit regions in 2004 are exclusively to be found in eastern Germany and Northwest Poland, where more than one in five people in the labour force are unemployed.
Denmark and Norway continue to enjoy near full employment, though more people were unemployed in 2004 than four years previously. On average, the rate increased by one percentage point during the period. This was also the case for Sweden. Finland managed to reduce the national headline figure, though regional unemployment rates in parts of eastern Finland stubbornly remained above the 10 percent mark. Åland remains the showcase for low unemployment in the BSR, though even here the unemployment rate jumped from below 1 percent to above 3 percent in the period 2000-2004.
Jörg Neubauer, previous Research Fellow, Nordregio