Andorra Currently Has The Lowest Unemployment Rate in the World

Most people are aware that the United States currently possesses an unemployment rate of almost 10% (9.5% to be exact, based on June 2009 numbers).

This figure is the "official" number that is published and used by the US government. The U-6 rate (which is an alternative means of measuring unemployment) is much higher, but that's a story for another day.

Throughout this global recession, tens of millions of jobs have been lost throughout the world.

As a matter of fact, the International Labor Organization recently estimated that there will be 239 million unemployed people throughout the world by the end of 2009. The ILO goes on to say that approximately 60 million people will have joined the ranks of the unemployed due to the recession.

Given this information, many people come to the conclusion that the United States has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world.

This is completely untrue.

Did you know that there is a country that actually possesses a NEGATIVE unemployment rate? (figure that one out).

Did you know that seven countries throughout the world have an official unemployment rate of 1.5% or lower?

Andorra isn't that big (they have a population of less than 100,000), but they do have something that no other country in the world can boast of - a negative unemployment rate.

How does this happen?

The answer - practically every citizen of Andorra who wants a job has one, plus people from other countries work in Andorra as well.

Andorra is a tax haven that is located in Western Europe, and they also benefit from millions of tourists visiting their country every year.

Andorra is the only country in the world (as far as I know) that actually has a negative unemployment rate.

Monaco, according to the CIA, enjoys an unemployment rate of 0%.

Monaco is another tiny country that benefits from being a tax haven - the country has "no income tax and low business taxes", and is also popular with tourists.

The list of the top ten countries with the lowest unemployment rates currently looks like this:

1. Andorra <0%
2. Monaco 0%
3. Qatar 0.6%
4. Azerbaijan 0.8%
5. Guernsey 0.9%
6. Uzbekistan 0.9%
7. Thailand 1.2%
8. Faroe Islands 1.4%
9. Isle of Man 1.5%
10. Liechtenstein 1.5%

Now, some of this data is a year old, but it should still give you an idea of which countries have the lowest unemployment rates throughout the world.

Tomorrow? The countries with the highest unemployment rates. Trust me, it's ugly.

Source: CIA Fact Book

Filed under: General Knowledge