The table compares the unemployed rates among nine countries in 1994 and 2004.
Overall, over 10 years, the proportion of unemployment in almost all countries has declined by 1-2%, except Japan, Ireland and Poland. While Ireland had a dramatic fall (from 14.8% to 4.4%), Poland jumped from 12.4% to 19%, an increase of 6.6%. In terms of Japan, this country continues to record the lowest unemployment rate over the period.
Over the period, Poland had the highest rate of unemployed people when it increased 1.5 % in 10 years. In second place was Germany, the figure rose by 2.2 percentage points. Meanwhile, Australia saw a slight increase from 5% to 5.4%, followed by Japan rising from 2.7% to 4.7%-,remaining at the bottom of the ranking.
In contrast, Ireland experienced a sharp fall, decreased threefold over 10 years. Similarly, The UK and The USA also dropped by half compared with 1994. As for Italy and Canada, the growth was slight, reaching at 8.4% and 7.7% in 2004.
