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Eurozone jobless rate improves to 10.9 pct in July

Xinhua, September 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

The unemployment rate in the 19-country Eurozone continued to improve in July to 10.9 percent from the reading of 11.1 percent in June, official data showed on Tuesday, suggesting the bloc is on track to a slow economic recovery.

The European Union (EU) statistics agency Eurostat described the figure as the lowest since February 2012. As a result, the number of unemployed people in euro area decreased by some 213,000 compared with last month.

Economists called the July fall "encouraging," as it offers some hope that the trend of labor market recovery has not gone into reverse.

European economist of Capital Economics Jessica Hinds said in a report that after the downwardly-revised 4,000 rise in the number out of work in June, July's drop "certainly came as something of a relief."

In the wider 28-nation EU, the jobless rate was 9.5 percent in July, down from the 9.6 percent in June, marking the lowest figure in the bloc since June 2011, Eurostat said.

The bloc's economy power Germany enjoyed the lowest unemployment rates among member states in July at 4.7 percent, while debt-ridden Greece suffered a highest reading of 25 percent in May.

Italy witnessed decent improvement as the number of unemployed fell by 143,000 compared with previous month and the rate dropped from 12.5 percent to 12.0 percent. Falls were also recorded in Spain and Portugal but the rate rose in France to 10.4 percent from 10.3 percent.

However, the continent still faces tricky challenge in addressing high unemployment rate as a whole with 23.067 million people, of whom 17.532 million in the euro area, were unemployed in July.

Economists warned that the bloc's labor market recovery won't gain much pace in the coming months as economic indicators showed a pretty weak growth in annual employment. Endit