The given table illustrates the unemployment in the labour force of nine different nations from 1994 to 2004.
Overall, it can be seen that Poland suffered the highest rise in unemployment, on the contrary, the jobless percentage in the Irish workforce decreased the most dramatically. Besides, North America, the UK, Ireland and Italy witnessed a downward trend in the proportion of people unemployed while other nations underwent the opposite trend.
To begin with, Ireland was the country with highest unemployment of 14.8% in 1994, however, this figure fell steeply to hit the low of 4.4% in 2004, the lowest index of all nations, in any year. During the same period, the UK almost halved their percentage of joblessness, from 9.5% in 1994 to 4.7% in 2004. Between 1994 and 2004, the USA, Canada and Italy all witnessed a dive in the rate of citizens unemployed, from 7.2%, 10.6% and 11.8% to 5.4%, 7.7% and 8.4%, respectively.
On the other hand, in 1994, the percentage of joblessness in the Polish workforce was 12.4%, this rate then rose rapidly to reach the peak of 19%, the highest index in any year . Over the period of 1994 to 2004, both Germany and Japan suffered an increase in the proportion of jobless people in their workforce, from 7% and 2.7% to 9.4% and 4.7%, sequentially. In the same time, the unemployment in Australia went up slightly by 0.4% from 5% in 1994.