Brussels, 31/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - The unemployment rate in the eurozone stood at 11.5% in June, which is slightly down compared to the previous month (11.6%). The scenario was the same for the whole of the EU, where the unemployment rate dropped in one month from 10.3% to 10.2%, according to the most recent estimates of the statistical office of the EU, Eurostat, published on Thursday 31 July. This confirms the downward trend which started in the final quarter of 2013.
“The unemployment figures for June 2014 confirm the first signs of economic recovery we have seen in Europe over the past year”, said Commissioner for Employment Laszlo Andor in a press release. “But while job destruction seems to have come to a halt, the reduction of unemployment has only been very modest so far”, he added. Too modest, also in the opinion of the European Trade Unions Confederation (ETUC), which stressed in a press release that 25 million people out of work in the EU is “totally unacceptable”, and that the EU needs to invest in growth.
Looking at individual countries, the only meaningful variations in the month of June all represented a drop. This was the case for: Bulgaria (-0.2%), Spain (-0.2%), Croatia (-0.3%), Italy (-0.3%), Lithuania (-0.5%), the Netherlands (-0.2%), Portugal (-0.2%) and Romania (-0.2%). According to ETUC, “one of the reasons for the fall in joblessness in countries like Spain, Portugal and Ireland (…) is people leaving the country to find work elsewhere”. (JK)