Brussels, 29/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - Unemployment levels remained unchanged between May and June 2016 in both the euro zone (10.1%) and the rest of the EU (8.6%), according to figures released by the EU's statistics office, Eurostat, on Friday 29 July.
Unemployment varied very little in the member states in June, bar a few exceptions. Spain and Cyprus saw a continuation of the improvement in the situation on their job markets, Spain now falling below the symbolic level of 20% to 19.9% in June, and Cyprus edging every closer to the eurozone average with a rate that has now gone down to 11.7% from over 13% at the start of the year.
Among the remaining member states, there were decreases in Lithuania (7.7% in June compared with 8% in May), the Netherlands (6.1% compared with 6.3%) and Romania (6.4% compared with 6.6%). The only country to see a rise was Latvia, where unemployment rose 0.2% to 9.9%.
Unemployment among under-25-year-olds fell slightly from 20.9% to 20.8% in the euro zone in June, and from 18.7% to 18.5% in the EU as a whole.
Eurostat said on Thursday that per capita household income in the eurozone in real terms capita increased by 0.9% in the first quarter of 2016, after an increase of 0.3% in the previous quarter. Household real consumption per capita increased by 0.8% in the first quarter of 2016, after an increase of 0.1% in the fourth quarter of 2015. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)