Euro area unemployment rate stable at 9.9 percent

Euro area unemployment rate stable at 9.9 percent

2011-04-29 19:50:41 GMT+7 (ICT)

BRUSSELS (BNO NEWS) -- The 17-country euro area's monthly unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.9 percent in March, compared to the previous month, and 0.2 percent lower than one year ago, the European Union (EU) announced on Friday.

The EU's statistical office, Eurostat, on Friday released its latest unemployment report, showing that the monthly unemployment rate also remained unchanged in March in the wider 27-country EU region, which stood at 9.5 percent. It was 9.7 percent in March 2010.

Eurostat estimates that 22.82 million men and women in the EU, of whom 15.59 million were in the euro area, were unemployed in March. Compared with February, the number of persons unemployed fell by 10,000 in the EU and by 9,000 in the euro area.

On a year-to-year basis, unemployment decreased by 291,000 in the EU and by 260,000 in the euro area.

Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in the Netherlands (4.2 percent), Austria (4.3 percent) and Luxembourg (4.5 percent), and the highest in Spain (20.7 percent), Lithuania (17.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010) and Latvia (17.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010).

Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate fell in sixteen Member States, increased in ten and remained stable in Poland. The largest falls were observed in Latvia (20.1 percent to 17.2 percent between the fourth quarters of 2009 and 2010), Estonia (16.1 percent to 14.3 percent between the fourth quarters of 2009 and 2010) and Germany (7.4 percent to 6.3 percent).

The highest increases were registered in Greece (10.2 percent to 14.1 percent between the fourth quarters of 2009 and 2010), Bulgaria (9.7 percent to 11.4 percent) and Ireland (13.1 percent to 14.7 percent).

The U.S. posted an 8.8 percent unemployment rate in March, while Japan had a 4.6 percent rate in February.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-04-29