EU fares better than U.S. in protecting jobs during the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns led to job losses in every region, but wide-ranging furlough schemes in the EU, paying up to 90% of salaries, helped the bloc keep more people employed than in the U.S.

Across Europe, many countries pushed job retention schemes providing wages to employees through company payrolls, compared with the U.S. which focused its efforts on stimulus checks and unemployment pay.

The EU job retention schemes vary by generosity and duration, country by country, but in essence are all designed to mitigate the effects of a sharp, temporary drop in demand.

As a result of these job protections, only 2.6 million Europeans lost their jobs in the first three quarters of 2020. In stark contrast, around 9.6 million U.S. workers lost their jobs in the same period, according to Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. government and Eurostat data.

The numbers are striking because the EU population outnumbers that of the U.S. by about 100 million.

Overall, U.S. unemployment rose from 3.8% in 2019 to 8.6% in 2020, briefly peaking at 14.8% in April 2020. The EU fared much better with unemployment rising from 6.9% in 2019 to 7.1% in 2020.

Young people across both regions were more likely to become jobless. In the U.S., 7.6% of people ages 16 to 24 became unemployed, compared with 4.1% of people over 40.

In Europe, 1.6% of people became unemployed during the pandemic, and among people over 40, there was no net change to the employment rate.

Women in the U.S. were also more likely to become unemployed, in contrast to the EU, which saw equal drops in unemployment across genders.

Over in the U.K., where a wide-ranging furlough scheme remains in place, job figures held up well. In the three months to February, the overall unemployment rate stood at 4.9%, edging lower from 5.0% in the three months to January.

As of early March, the furlough scheme has cost the U.K. government almost £50 billion ($70 billion).

“More timely payroll data dipped back slightly in March but also suggests that—outside of the hard-hit consumer services sector—other parts of the jobs market are beginning to turn a corner,” ING developed markets economist James Smith said in a research note.

Most economists expect the unemployment rate to rise this year at least temporarily.

“A combination of the end of the furlough scheme and, to a lesser extent, a potential increase in inbound U.K. migration later this year are both likely to trigger a temporary spike in the jobless rate to 6% [or] 6.5%,” Smith added.