Eurozone jobless rate at record low for third straight month

(Sharecast News) - The jobless rate in the eurozone unexpectedly held stable in January, staying at a record-low level for the third straight month, according to data out on Tuesday from Eurostat. The unemployment rate across the single-currency region was 6.2%, after a continued steady descent from the recent peak of 8.6% in the height of the pandemic in mid-2020.

The consensus forecast was for a slight pick-up in the rate to 6.3%.

According to Eurostat, a total of 10.655m people across the eurozone were unemployed during the month of January, a decrease of 42,000 since December.

Compared with January 2024 when the jobless rate was 6.5%, unemployment has shrunk by 547,000.

Youth unemployment, defined by those under the age of 25 out of work, totalled 2.263m in January, equating to a rate of 14.1%, down from 14.2% in December.

The highest levels of overall unemployment were seen in Spain (10.4%) and Greece (8.7%), though both rates had fallen from the previous month; while the lowest unemployment rates were registered in Malta (3.0%), Slovenia (3.3%) and Germany (3.5%).