Unemployment ‘steady’ in Eurozone

Unemployment across the 17-country Eurozone held steady in August, in another sign that the region’s economy is stabilising following its longest-ever recession.

By The Newsroom

Published 1st Oct 2013, 18:25 BST

Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, said that unemployment was unchanged at 12 per cent in August from the previous month. In total, the number of unemployed fell by a modest 5,000 to 19.18 million.

The improvement in the Eurozone labour market has come in the wake of the region’s emergence from recession. In the second quarter, it posted quarterly economic growth following six straight contractions.

The overall figures mask huge divergences: While Germany has an unemployment rate of 5.2 per cent, Greece and Spain have over a quarter of their potential workforce out of work.

”The Eurozone’s jobless rate is past its peak for the current economic cycle,” said Zach Witton, economist at Moody’s Analytics.