Unemployment rate drops to new over-decade low in April
Labor market conditions in the common currency bloc improved in April, according to data released by Eurostat. The number of unemployed people decreased by 108,000, and the unemployment rate fell to 7.6% in April (March: 7.7%). The result marks the lowest unemployment rate since August 2008.
Looking at the countries with data available, five economies saw their unemployment rates fall in April, including Spain. Portugal was the only economy to see its unemployment rate rise, while the rest had no changed.
Despite a large overall improvement in the Eurozone over recent years, disparities in the labor market among core and periphery countries persist. Greece is the economy in the Eurozone with by far the highest unemployment rate (18.5%, data refers to February), followed by Spain (13.8%) and Italy (10.2%). At the other end of the spectrum, Germany (3.2%) and the Netherlands (3.3%) have the lowest unemployment rates.