Unemployment in European Union

Unemployment remained stable in August at 12% in the euro area and 10.9% in the whole of the European Union (EU) over the previous month , according to data published by Eurostat , the EU office statistics.

Hologram of the European Union

In Spain, the unemployment rate also remained unchanged in August at 26.2 %, the second largest number in the Twenty-eight after Greece (27.9 %, according to June).

Compared with August 2012 , unemployment rose by 0.5 points in the euro partners at 0.3 throughout the EU and 0.6 in Spain , according to seasonally adjusted data by Eurostat.

Last August the EU had 26.6 million unemployed of which 19.2 million were from the euro zone , according to estimates by the EU's statistical office . Compared with August 2012, the number of unemployed persons increased by 882,000 and the 28 around 895,000 in the eurozone .

Member States with lowest unemployment rates were Austria (4.9%), Germany (5.2%) and Luxembourg ( 5.8%).

During the past year , unemployment rose in sixteen Member States, fell in eleven and remained stable only in one, Poland.

The largest increases were observed in Cyprus (from 12.3% to 16.9%) and Greece (24.6% to 27.9 % between June 2012 and 2013), while the most significant decreases were those of Latvia (15.6% to 11.4 %) between the second quarters of 2012 and 2013) and Estonia ( 10.1% to 7.9 % between July 2012 and 2013).

As youth unemployment rate in August fell a tenth 28 as both the euro area and placed respectively in 23.3% and 23.7 %.

These figures mean that in August there were about 5.5 million unemployed under 25 in the EU, 3.4 million of them in the countries of the single currency.

The lower youth unemployment rates were recorded in Germany (7.7%), Austria (8.6%) and the Netherlands (11.4%), while the highest were in Greece (61.5 % in June) , Spain (56%) and Croatia (52 % in the second quarter of 2013) . In August 2012 , unemployment among the under- 25s was 23.1 % in the EU and 23.4 % in the partners of the single currency .