Euro area unemployment rate increases slightly to 10.2 percent

[News_Editor]

Euro area unemployment rate increases slightly to 10.2 percent

2011-11-02 06:47:02 GMT+7 (ICT)

BRUSSELS (BNO NEWS) -- The European Union (EU) on Tuesday announced that the unemployment rate in the euro area (EA17) was 10.2 percent in September, which is a slight increase compared to 10.1 percent in the previous month.

The wider 27-nation EU area, meanwhile, had an unemployment rate of 9.7 percent in September, representing a small increase on a year-to-year basis compared to September 2010's 9.6 percent. It was also 9.6 percent in August.

The numbers were released by the EU's statistical office, Eurostat, which estimates that 23.26 million men and women in the EU27, of whom 16.2 million were in the euro area, were unemployed in September.

Compared with the previous month, the number of people unemployed increased by 174,000 in the EU27 and by 188,000 in the euro area. On a year-to-year basis, unemployment rose by 215,000 and 329,000 in the EU27 and the euro area respectively.

Among the EU Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (3.9 percent), the Netherlands (4.5 percent) and Luxembourg (4.8 percent). The highest rates were in Spain (22.6 percent), Greece (17.6 percent in July) and Latvia (16.1 percent in the second quarter of the year).

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell in fourteen Member States and increased in thirteen compared with figures from a year ago.

The largest falls were observed in Estonia (17.9 percent to 12.8 percent between the second quarters of 2010 and 2011), Latvia (19.4 percent to 16.1 percent between the second quarters of 2010 and 2011) and Lithuania (18.2 percent to 15.5 percent, also between the second quarters of 2010 and 2011).

The highest increases were registered in Greece (12.6 percent to 17.6 percent between July 2010 and July 2011), Spain (20.5 percent to 22.6 percent) and Cyprus (6 percent to 7.8 percent).

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