EU unemployment down to 10.9% in June

The 27-member European Union ended June 2013 with 10.9 per cent unemployment, seasonally adjusted, down from 11 per cent in May, according to EU statistics office Eurostat. Initially, Eurostat reported the unemployment figure for May at 10.9 per cent.

Unemployment – also seasonally-adjusted – in the 17-member euro zone was 12.1 per cent in June, unchanged from a month earlier, Eurostat said.

Including Croatia, which joined the EU on July 1, the unemployment figure is 11 per cent, unchanged in June.

In Bulgaria, unemployment in June was 12.6 per cent, falling for the third straight month, but still 0.3 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

Eurostat estimated that 26.424 million men and women in the EU27, of whom 19.266 million were in the euro zone, were unemployed in June 2013.

Compared with May 2013, the number of unemployed decreased by 32 000 in the EU27 and by 24 000 in the euro area. Compared with June 2012, unemployment rose by 1.080 million in the EU27 and by 1.129 million in the euro area.

Among the EU member states, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (4.6 per cent), Germany (5.4 per cent) and Luxembourg (5.7 per cent), while the highest rates were in Greece (26.9 per cent in April 2013) and Spain (26.3 per cent).

Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate increased in 17 member states and fell in 10. The highest increases were registered in Cyprus (11.7 per cent to 17.3 per cent), Greece (23.1 per cent to 26.9 per cent between April 2012 and April 2013), and Slovenia (8.8 per cent to 11.2 per cent).

The largest decreases were observed in Latvia (15.5 per cent to 12.5 per cent between the first quarters of 2012 and 2013) and Estonia (10.1 per cent to eight per cent between May 2012 and May 2013).

Youth unemployment was up on a monthly basis – from 23.1 per cent to 23.2 per cent in the EU27 and from 23.8 per cent to 23.9 per cent in the euro zone – as well as being higher than in June 2012, when it was 22.8 per cent in the EU27 and 23 per cent in the euro area.

(Photo: Sergio Roberto Bichara/sxc.hu)

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