Jobs are not being lost everywhere in Europe.
In the midst of Europe’s debt-induced recession woes, it is interesting to note the vastly different labour market experience of individual European economies since late 2007. The two charts below illustrate this point. Looking at the employment rate (number of employed as a proportion of the working age population), the first chart shows that the labour market performance of France, Austria, Romania and Belgium appear to have been little affected. Their employment rates have been remarkably stable, having diverged at most by around one percentage point since late 2007 – when their economies were booming.
Employment and unemployment, major countries from Timetric
In contrast, in Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Latvia employment rates have fallen by between 4-13 percentage points since their respective peaks in 2007.
It appears that all the countries in the first chart show a distinct seasonal pattern: agriculture, tourism, …? Yet, France and Belgium are surely more advanced and industrialised than any in the second chart where only Greece shows a seasonal pattern.
Yes, the data is in original quarterly terms not seasonally adjusted for all the countries. And you are quite right, some countries show a much higher level of seasonality than others. If you take a trend line through the data points, you can better probably see a ‘Two speed Europe’ emerge.