As Europe faces a turning point in its collective economy, Germany ended 2011 with its lowest unemployment rate in 20 years.
 
According to the news site BBC, the German Federal Labour Agency reported that the average jobless rate fell to 7.1 percent last year, or around 2.976 million, from 7.7 percent in 2010.
 
The adjusted jobless rate went down to 6.8 percent last December, from 6.9 percent the month before, marking “a new record low since figures for unified Germany were first published,” the report said.
 
Meanwhile, the seasonally-adjusted total fell 22, 000 to 2.88 million in December, it added.
 
Though their “eurozone markets weakened,” Germany’s “export-driven economy” moved forward by “moving their focus elsewhere,” with manufacturing exports to “eastern” countries like China.
 
“For the first time, more than 40 million Germans—about half the population—have jobs,” said BBC’s Berline correspondent Stephen Evans.  “Economists warn, though, that growth will slow this year, and that could mean people losing their jobs and a further squeeze on wages.”
 
Despite the forecast, Evans noted that “unemployment at a record low for the last two decades is something most countries would envy, and a sign of the way Germany has rebuilt itself since the Wall came down.”
 
Statistics from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) show that there are only 117 Filipinos in Germany as of 2010.
 
Spain’s dilemma
 
On the other hand, Spain said last January 3 that more people claimed unemployment benefits as 2011 came to a close.
 
According to BBC, Spain recorded a 15-year high in the number of jobless people in its country last December, with 4.42 million.
 
In a report early last December, BBC said Spain—and its newly-elected Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy—“faces a potentially unsolvable economic dilemma” and “a major financial crisis” should the attempt “to rescue the euro” fail again.
 
“The Spanish government’s cost of borrowing money on the financial markets for 10 years—a popular barometer of lender fear—peaked at a rate of 6.7 percent before falling back on the rumours. That’s close to the level where other eurozone governments turned to their neighbors for a bailout,” the report said.
 
BBC said Spain is now “bust”, with an economy that has “shrunk at an annual rate of 1 percent” since the end of 2007.
 
“So, although the Spanish government still has relatively little existing debts, it is now having to borrow like crazy to fill the gap left by the jump in unemployment benefits and collapse in tax revenues during the downturn,” it said.

Data from the POEA show that there are more than 3,200 Filipinos in Spain as of 2010. Out of the 128 workers the Philippines deployed there that year, 119 were classified under the “service workers” category. - VVP, GMA News