Eurozone Unemployment Rate Decreases, but Double-Digit Rates Persist in Spain and Greece

The unemployment rate in the eurozone stood at 6.4 percent in May, according to data from the International Labor Organization (ILO). This was a decrease of 0.1 percentage points compared to May of the previous year and remained unchanged from April. In the European Union (EU), the unemployment rate also remained at six percent in May, which was a decrease of 0.1 percentage points compared to May of the previous year and an increase of 0.1 percentage point compared to April.

There were 13.2 million unemployed citizens in the EU in May, with 11.08 million of them in the eurozone. Compared to April, there was an increase of 38 thousand unemployed individuals in the Eurozone and 13 thousand in the EU on a monthly basis. On an annual basis, there was an increase of three thousand unemployed individuals in the Eurozone and 163 thousand in the EU.

Spain and Greece had double-digit unemployment rates of 11.7 percent and 10.6 percent respectively, while Sweden had a low single-digit rate of 8.4 percent followed by Finland with an identical rate of 8.2 percent. Croatia recorded a lower unemployment rate than both Spain and Greece at 5.3 percent, which was a decrease of