Unemployment rate drops to new over-decade low in May
Labor market conditions in the common currency bloc improved again in May, according to data released by Eurostat. The number of unemployed people decreased by 103,000, and the unemployment rate fell to 7.5% in May (April: 7.6%). The result marks the lowest unemployment rate since July 2008.
Looking at the countries with data available, six economies saw their unemployment rates fall in May, including Italy and Spain, 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 (17.6%, data refers to April), followed by Spain (13.6%) and Italy (9.9%). At the other end of the spectrum, Germany (3.1%) and the Netherlands (3.3%) have the lowest unemployment rates.