Euro Area: Unemployment rate stable in September
Labor market conditions in the common currency block worsened again in September, although data released by Eurostat continues to show just a small portion of the deterioration. The number of unemployed people increased by 75,000, while the unemployment rate was stable at August’s 8.3% in September.
Short-time work schemes involving a massive portion of the labor force across the Eurozone has prevented a jump in the unemployment rate so far. Moreover, discouraged people abandoning the active population are further contributing to contained jobless numbers.
That, said, looking at the countries with data available, 7 economies saw their unemployment rate increase in September, including Austria and France. Meanwhile, 8 countries saw their unemployment rate falling, including Italy and Spain. In Germany the unemployment rate was unchanged from August.
Disparities in the labor market among core and periphery countries persist. Greece is the economy in the Eurozone with the highest unemployment rate (16.8%, data refers to July), closely followed by Spain (16.5%). At the other end of the spectrum, Malta (4.0%), the Netherlands (4.4%) and Germany (4.5%) have the lowest unemployment rates.