The rate of unemployment, adjusted for seasonal variations, was 10.2% in April within the eurozone. It was thus stable relative to March last year (10.3%) and lower relative to the rate of 11%, recorded in April 2015. These figures were indicated on Tuesday by Eurostat, the Directorate-General of the European Commission, responsible for the provision of statistics. Averaged across the 28 EU member countries, this rate was 8.7% during April, the lowest level since April 2009. This indicates a drop in relation to the 8.8% in March and 9.6% in April 2015. In Belgium, the rate of unemployment remained stable in April, at 8.7% (which is the same rate as in April 2015, although being 8.6% in March).
Over a one-year period, through to April 2016, the rate of unemployment nosedived in 25 member states and soared in Estonia, as well as in Latvia. The most marked decreases were observed in Cyprus (from 15.7% to 11.6%), in Bulgaria (from 10% to 7.1%) and in Spain (from 22.7% to 20.1%).
Eurostat estimated that in April 2016, 21,224 million men and women were unemployed in the 28 EU member countries, of which 16,420 million were in the eurozone. There were 4,235 million youngsters under 25 unemployed in the EU. The rate of unemployment for this group was 18.8% within the 28 EU member countries and 21.1% within the eurozone. This compares respectively to 20.7% and 22.5% in March 2015. The lowest rates were seen in Germany (7%), Malta (8.9%) as well as the Czech Republic (9.5%), and the highest in Greece (51.4% in February 2016), in Spain (45%), in Croatia (38.9% in the first quarter of 2016) and in Italy (36.9%).
(Source: Belga)
