The German regions of southern and central Bavaria have the lowest unemployment in the EU, according to figures released on 15th of April.
The region of Upper Bavaria, which includes Munich, has an unemployment rate of just 2.6%, according to 2013 figures published by Eurostat, which show a vast unemployment disparity across Europe – ranging from under 3% in parts of southern Germany to over 36% in Andalucía, Spain.
The city of Freiburg, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, boasted the next-lowest unemployment rate in Europe - at 2.9% - alongside Salzburg in Austria.
The entire European top ten was dominated by regions in southern Germany – while almost all of the regions with the highest unemployment rate were in Spain.
In all, 23 regions in Germany had an unemployment rate of 5.4% or less, which is half the EU average.
But almost 25 years after the Berlin Wall fell, there is still a clear difference in unemployment rates between the states of the former communist East Germany and the western states.
Berlin still had an unemployment rate of 10.6% in 2013 - the same as the year before and twice as high as the German average. Among 15 to 24-year-olds the rate was 14.3%.
