The global economic downturn has caused a big rise in unemployment across Europe.
On Tuesday, Audrey Carville presented a special edition of Europe Today, taking an in depth look at the problems facing the continent.
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Germany and the UK are the European Union's most powerful economies.
The BBC's Damien McGuinness has been assessing how bad things are in Germany, where unemployment is heading towards 8%.
Listen Listen to his report (2 mins 53 secs)
More than two million British people are now out of work
In the UK, unemployment stands at just over 6%.
It has just passed the two million mark and many economists now predict it will go above three million next year.
The BBC's British affairs correspondent Rob Broomby has been talking to some people who are already unemployed.
Listen Listen to his report (3 mins 3 secs)
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Unemployment hits both big and small countries with devastating effects.
One small country which is going through a bad time is Estonia, which just a few years ago was known as the 'Baltic tiger' because of its rapid economic growth.
It was one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with its GDP rising at almost 8% in 2007.
However, things have rapidly taken a turn for the worse.
Audrey Carville asked Estonia's minister for Social Welfare, Hanno Pevkur, how bad things are in his country at the moment.
Listen Listen to Hanno Pevkur (2 mins 37 secs)
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Chantal Hughes is spokeswoman for the European commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities.
Does she prefer a more powerful welfare system, or more measures to encourage employment?
Listen Listen to Chantal Hughes (1 min 40 secs)
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Spain has one of the highest unemployment rates in the EU
As recently as two years ago, Spain was creating a third of all new jobs in the European Union, largely in the construction and service industries.
However, the unemployment rate has now nearly reached 15%, almost double the EU average.
Many of the unemployed are young highly-qualified university graduates.
The BBC's Steve Kingstone in Madrid spoke to two of them.
Listen Listen to two Spanish graduates (1 min 33 secs)
Many business leaders in Spain complain that labour laws are too generous to workers, which means employers are deterred from employing staff on a long-term basis.
Steve Kingstone spoke to Jose Luis Feito from the Confederation of Spanish Business Organisations.
Listen Listen to Jose Luis Feito (3 mins 25 secs)
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The most immediate impact of unemployment is felt by those who are made redundant, but when things are this tough it is also difficult for people who are about to come onto the jobs market.
Audrey was joined by two people: Elisa Arias, a Spanish graduate in Media Studies and Laura Kindt, a German student of Business studies who is studying at university in Edinburgh in Scotland.
Listen Listen to their discussion (4 mins 41 secs)
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One of the consequences of rising unemployment is the rising numbers of people who leave their place of birth in search of work elsewhere.
The recession has deprived Ireland of its 'Celtic tiger' status
This was experienced perhaps most starkly by Ireland in the 1980s.
Unemployment then was more than 20% and hundreds of thousands of people packed their bags and left for America, Canada, Australia and Britain.
When Ireland boomed in the late 90s many of these people came home, but now with unemployment already at more than 10%, people are once again using the dreaded 'e' word: emigration.
Audrey was joined from Dublin by Brendan Landers, a writer and journalist who left for Canada in 1984.
Did he feel he had any choice but to leave Ireland?
Listen Listen to Brendan Landers (3 mins 32 secs)_____________________________________________________________________
First broadcast 17 March 2009
