EU unemployment remains flat at 12% in February
The 27-member European Union ended February 2013 with 12 per cent unemployment, seasonally adjusted, according to EU statistics office Eurostat.
Unemployment – also seasonally-adjusted – in the 17-member euro zone was 10.9 per cent, up from 10.8 per cent a month earlier, Eurostat said.
In both the EU and the euro zone, unemployment has risen compared with February 2012, when it was 10.9 per cent and 10.2 per cent, respectively.
In Bulgaria, unemployment in February was 12.5 per cent, flat month-on-month, and 0.5 percentage points higher than a year earlier.
Eurostat estimates that 26.338 million men and women in the EU27, of whom 19.071 million were in the euro zone, were unemployed in February 2013.
Compared with January 2013, the number of unemployed was increased by 76 000 in the EU27 and by 33 000 in the euro area. Compared with February 2012, unemployment rose by 1.805 million in the EU27 and by 1.775 million in the euro area.
Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (4.8 per cent), Germany (5.4 per cent), Luxembourg (5.5 per cent) and the Netherlands (6.2 per cent), and the highest in Greece (26.4 per cent in December 2012), Spain (26.3 per cent) and Portugal (17.5 per cent).
(Illustration: Sergio Roberto Bichara/sxc.hu)
