Unemployment rate during each national leader's tenure, worldwide

The leaders of 39 countries since 1991, ranked against one another by how the unemployment rate changed from their first day in office, each on its own country's figures. Politare shows what happened during a tenure; it does not claim the office-holder caused it.

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#	Office-holder	Place	In office	Total	Per year
1	PSOE José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero	Spain Prime Minister	16 Apr 2004 – 20 Dec 2011	+11.5 pp Mar 2004 → Nov 2011	+1.5 pp/yr
2	AKEL Dimitris Christofias	Cyprus President	28 Feb 2008 – 28 Feb 2013	+11.0 pp Jan 2008 → Jan 2013	+2.2 pp/yr
3	KIDISO Giorgos Papandreou	Greece Prime Minister	6 Oct 2009 – 11 Nov 2011	+10.7 pp Sep 2009 → Oct 2011	+5.1 pp/yr
4	Kesk Esko Aho	Finland Prime Minister	26 Apr 1991 – 13 Apr 1995	+9.9 pp Mar 1991 → Mar 1995	+2.5 pp/yr
5	FF Brian Cowen	Ireland Taoiseach	7 May 2008 – 9 Mar 2011	+9.5 pp Apr 2008 → Feb 2011	+3.4 pp/yr
6	LC Ivars Godmanis	Latvia Prime Minister	20 Dec 2007 – 12 Mar 2009	+8.6 pp Nov 2007 → Feb 2009	+6.9 pp/yr
7	PO Jerzy Buzek	Poland Prime Minister	31 Oct 1997 – 19 Oct 2001	+8.1 pp Sep 1997 → Sep 2001	+2.0 pp/yr
8	GERB Boyko Borissov	Bulgaria Prime Minister	27 Jul 2009 – 13 Mar 2013	+6.4 pp Jun 2009 → Feb 2013	+1.7 pp/yr
9	M Carl Bildt	Sweden Prime Minister	4 Oct 1991 – 7 Oct 1994	+5.5 pp Sep 1991 → Sep 1994	+1.8 pp/yr
10	TS-LKD Andrius Kubilius	Lithuania Prime Minister	26 Nov 2008 – 22 Nov 2012	+5.4 pp Oct 2008 → Oct 2012	+1.3 pp/yr

Showing 10 of 250 tenures.

Sorted by total, highest first. Rows measure the share of the labour force out of work, as each statistics office surveys it (age bands and survey months differ); each place is read from its own statistics office's series (the row's chart names it), so a change is set against the place's own first day, never against another country's level. Every row is indexed to the last month, quarter or count complete before the first day in office ("from" marks a start that had to move because that period had no data, or because the period cut it). Changes are differences in pp; "per year" divides them by the years in office. Tenures with under 12 months, or under three observations, are left out. Data as of Sep 2026.