The line graph illustrates the unemployment rates among four categories comprising professional workers, manual workers, all workers and self-employed workers in the EU from 1990 to 1999 .
Overall, unemployment levels in the EU rose substantially before declining towards the end of the period for most categories, with the notable exception of self-employed workers, whose figures continued to climb. Throughout the decade, manual workers consistently recorded the highest proportion of unemployed workers, while professional workers remained the least affected group.
Looking at manual workers and the overall figure, in 1990, manual workers had an unemployment rate of 7.2%, considerably higher than the general figure of approximately 5%. The former then rose sharply to a peak of around 14.3% in 1994, before falling back to roughly 9.6% by 1999. The overall rate followed a broadly similar upward trajectory, climbing steadily from 4.8% to a high of 12.5% in 1997, after which it declined moderately to just above 10% at the close of the period.
Regarding the remaining categories, self-employed workers began at 6% in 1990, slightly above the professional group, which stood at a mere 1.8%. Self-employed unemployment rose considerably throughout the decade, stabilising at approximately 12.5% from 1997 onwards. Professional workers, by contrast, followed a far less dramatic pattern, edging upward to a modest peak of around 5.4% in 1997 before retreating to 1.8% in 1999, matching their initial level.