The Eurostat- the statistical office of the Eurozone reported an unemployment rate for November 2017 for the Euro area (EA19) of 8.7%. This represent a slight decrease  from the preceding October 2017 unemployment rate of 8.8%, and a 1.1% fall from the corresponding period of November 2016, when unemployment rate was a high of 9.8%.

The broader Euro area (EU28)  also posted a decline in unemployment, albeit at a lower level, moving from 7.4% to 7.3% from October to November 2017. This reflects a fall of 1% when compare to November 2016.

Member States

Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates in November 2017 were recorded in the Czech Republic (2.5%), Malta and Germany (both 3.6%). The highest unemployment rates were observed in Greece (20.5% in September 2017) and Spain (16.7%). Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate fell in all Member States for which data is comparable over time. The largest decreases were registered in Greece (from 23.2% to 20.5% between September 2016 and September 2017), Portugal (from 10.5% to 8.2%), Croatia (from 12.5% to 10.4%) and Cyprus (from 13.1% to 11.0%).

Youth Unemployment

Unemployment among youth ( under 25) decreased across the region. Compared with November 2016, youth unemployment decreased by 429 000 in the EU28 and by 286 000 in the euro area to a rate of 16.2% and 18.2% respectively. In November 2017, the lowest unemployment rates among youth were observed in the Czech Republic (5.0%) and Germany (6.6%), while the highest were recorded in Greece (39.5% in September 2017), Spain (37.9%) and Italy (32.7%).

 

The below graph depicts the unemployment rate for individual country within the Euro area, adjusted for seasonality.

Source: Eurostats

  

The graph below shows the movement of unemployment rate for the Euro area from 2000- 2017

  Source: Eurostats

 

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