Brussels, 29/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - Unemployment in fell by 0.2% in the eurozone in March on the previous month.
If the EU's statistical office, Eurostat, keeps to this figures (not revising the rates it published on Friday 29 April), then this 0.2% fall in unemployment will be the biggest drop since mid -2015. During the month of March, unemployment in the eurozone stood at 10.2%, compared with 10.4% in February. For the EU as a whole, unemployment was 8.8% in March, down 0.1% on the previous month.
The difference in the two months is greatest in six member states which all saw a fall in the number of unemployed, with the sharpest falls in Cyprus (12.1%, down 0.4% in a month), Malta (4l.7%, -0.4%), Lithuania (8.5%, -0.3%), Latvia (10.1%, -0.2%), Italy (11.4%, -0.2%), Croatia (14.9%, -0.2%) and France (10%, -0.2%).
There was an even greater fall in unemployment among the under-25 year olds, from 21.7% to 21.2% in the eurozone and from 19.4% to 19.1% in the EU. The fall was particularly noticeable in Bulgaria (from 20.5% to 18.5%), Ireland (from 20% to 19%), Italy (from 38.2% to 36.7%), Latvia (from 18% to 16,.5%), Malta (from 10.8% to 9.8%) and Austria (from 12% to 10.9%).
On Friday, Eurostat also published a study of regional unemployment in the EU, which ranges from 2.5% to 34.0%. Unemployment fell in most regions during 2015 by at least 0.5 % on 2014. In around 30% of regions, the majority of the unemployment had been without work for at least a year. For young people, the lowest unemployment levels were recorded in German regions, particularly Oberbayern (3.4%) and Freiburg (4.7%), and the highest in Ceuta (79.2%) and Melilla (72.0%) in Spain. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)