G8 Unemployment as of Feb. 8, 2009

Below is a snapshot of a global economic indicator, unemployment. The numbers are from the web site Trading Economic which provides "Global Economics Research". The chart will show the most recent unemployment rates, and if you click on the link, it takes you to the source, where you can compare the monthly trends. More comparitive charts to follow on this.

The U.S. unemployment rate is 7.6%, up from 7.2% in December.

The latest U.K. 3.6% is up .3% from December's 3.3.

France tallied 8.1% up from December's 8%.

Russia's rate is 7.7%, a leap from December's 6.6%.

Germany's 7.7% January, is part of a slight increase in recent months, but it it lower than the 8.2% from earlier in 2008. In fact it's low compared to Jan. of 2006 when the unemployed accounted for 11.4% of Germany's workforce.

Still relatively low compared to other G8 nations, Japan's 4.4% is their highest since Jan., 2006 when the rate was the same.

Last year Italy was very steady. The last update from the Trading Economics web site was in October, 2008, and showed the rate to be 6.7%. Actually, it seems rather unusual when you see some fluctuations from month to month in countries like Canada, to see at least 7/12 months last year to have 6.7%, and three months to have 6.7%.

Canada's 7.2% in January, 2009 is up from the previous month's of 6.6%