The picture of the European Union’s economy darkened further on July 23 2009 when the bloc’s statistical office Eurostat released new figures showing that youth unemployment was on the rise while the EU’s current account deficit had jumped to 58.2 billion euro in the first quarter of this year.
 
After three years of decline, the EU unemployment rate started to rise in the first quarter of 2008 in the wake of the economic crisis.
Since then the unemployment rate, especially for young people, has increased sharply in the EU.

In the first quarter of 2009, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the EU27 for those aged 15-24 was 18.3 per cent, significantly higher than the total unemployment rate of 8.2 per cent.

In the EU27 , five million young people were unemployed.
 
In the euro area, the group of countries using the common European currency, youth unemployment was 18.4 per cent and total unemployment was 8.8 per cent. In the euro area , 3.1 million young people were unemployed.
 
Between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, the youth unemployment rate in the EU27 rose by 3.7 percentage points, while the total unemployment rate increased by 1.5 percentage points.
 
Youth unemployment increased in all nember states except Bulgaria , where it fell from 13.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2008 to 13.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2009.
 
The largest rises in youth unemployment were in Latvia (from 11 per cent to 28.2 per cent), Estonia (from 7.6 per cent to 24.1 per cent) and Lithuania (from 9.5 per cent to 23.6 per cent), and the smallest rises were found in Germany (from 10.2 per cent to 10.5 per cent) and Poland (from 17.8 per cent to 18.2 per cent).
 
As to the current account deficit, according to Eurostat’s newest revised figures, the EU27 external current account recorded a deficit of 58.2 billion euro in the first quarter of 2009, compared with a deficit of 46.2 billion euro in the first quarter of 2008 and a deficit of 68.3 billion euro in the fourth quarter of 2008.

In the first quarter of 2009, compared with the first quarter of 2008, the surplus of the services account fell (+12.0 billion euro compared with +18.5 billion euro), while the surplus of the income account turned into a deficit (-9.6 billion euro compared with +4.0 billion euro) and the deficit of the current transfers account increased (-17.5 billion euro compared with -15.5 billion euro).
 
On the other hand, the deficit of the goods account decreased (-43.1 billion euro compared with -53.2 billion euro).

The surplus recorded in the services account (+12.0 billion euro) is mainly the result of surpluses in financial services (+6.9 billion euro), "other business services", which includes miscellaneous business, professional and technical services (+5.2 b billion euro), computer and information services (+4.6 billion euro) and transportation (+4.5 billion euro), partially offset by deficits in travel (-six billion euro) and royalties andlicense fees (-4.1 billion euro).

In the first quarter of 2009, the EU27 external current account recorded a surplus with Switzerland (+8.2 billion euro), Canada (+1.9 b billion euro), Hong Kong (+1.7 billion euro), and Brazil (+0.3 billion euro), and a deficit with China (-32.8 billion euro), Russia (-6.4 billion euro), Japan (-six billion euro), the US (-2.1 billion euro) and India (-0.9 billion euro).

In the first quarter of 2009, the EU27 made direct investment abroad of 82.4 billion euro, compared with 162.8 billion euro in the same quarter of 2008, while foreign direct investors invested 41.8 billion euro in the EU27 , compared with 117.9 billion euro in the first quarter of 2008.

In the first quarter of 2009, portfolio investment recorded a net inflow of 285.6 billion euro compared with 209.8 billion euro in the first quarter of 2008.