The table illustrates how unemployment rate in the total labour workforces varies across 9 countries over a period of 10 years starting from 1994.
Overall, it is clear that while there were increases in the numbers of unemployed workers in Poland, Japan and Germany, the reverse was true for the rest nations. Another striking feature is that although Ireland was the nation with most jobless citizens in the first year, later it became the one least affected.
Looking first at countries with rising unemployment rate, Poland saw an increase from 12.4% in 1994 to 19% in 2004, surpassing Ireland as the nation with highest number of people out of work. During the same period, there was a rise of 2.4% in the figure for Germany from 7%. Japan also witnessed the same upward trend, albeit to a lesser extent, from 2.7% to 4.5%.
As for nations with reduced proportions of jobless citizens, initially the country suffering most from unemployment, Ireland recorded a significant decrease of 10.4% during the surveyed period. Following closely behind were Italy and Canada, dropping from 11.8% and 10.6% to a comparable rate, at nearly 8%. The UK and Australia witnessed the same pattern, declining from 9.5% and 7.2% to the same figure in the last year, at 4.7%. At the bottom of the chart came Japan, making up just under one-twentieth in both examined years.