EU unemployment flat at 11% in July
The 28-member European Union ended July 2013 with 11 per cent unemployment, seasonally adjusted, unchanged from the previous month, according to EU statistics office Eurostat.
This was the first unemployment data to include Croatia as a member of the bloc, with the country joining on July 1. The unemployment figure for the 27 countries without Croatia remainched unchanged at 10.9 per cent.
Unemployment – also seasonally-adjusted – in the 17-member euro zone was 12.1 per cent in July, unchanged from a month earlier, Eurostat said.
In Bulgaria, unemployment in June was 12.7 per cent, the latest data showing no change for a second straight month, but still 0.3 percentage points higher than a year earlier.
Eurostat estimated that 26.654 million men and women in the EU28, of whom 19.231 million were in the euro zone, were unemployed in July 2013.
Compared with June 2013, the number of unemployed decreased by 33 000 in the EU28 and by 15 000 in the euro area. Compared with July 2012, unemployment rose by 995 000 million in the EU28 and by 1.008 million in the euro area.
Among the EU member states, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (4.8 per cent), Germany (5.3 per cent) and Luxembourg (5.7 per cent), while the highest rates were in Greece (27.6 per cent in May 2013) and Spain (26.3 per cent).
Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate increased in 17 member states and fell in 11. The highest increases were registered in Cyprus (12.2 per cent to 17.3 per cent), Greece (23.8 per cent to 27.6 per cent between May 2012 and May 2013), and Slovenia (9.3 per cent to 11.2 per cent).
The largest decreases were observed in Latvia (15.7 per cent to 11.5 per cent between the second quarters of 2012 and 2013) and Estonia (10.1 per cent to 7.9 per cent between June 2012 and June 2013).
Youth unemployment was down on a monthly basis – from 23.5 per cent to 23.4 per cent in the EU28. In the euro zone, there were 16 000 fewer unemployed under the age of 25, but the unemployment rate rose from 23.9 per cent to 24 per cent.
(Photo: Sergio Roberto Bichara/sxc.hu)
