The euro area unemployment rate eased to 6.6 percent in May, slipping by one tenth from the previous month and marking the lowest level in the entire 19-country series. Eurostat data, tracing back to April 1998, show Spain at 13.1 percent, the highest among the countries with available data.
Overall, the eurozone unemployment rate stood eight tenths below the pre-pandemic level of February 2020, when unemployment was 7.4 percent across euro-area members.
Similarly, across the European Union the unemployment rate held steady at 6.1 percent in May, compared with 7.3 percent a year earlier. This is also the lowest figure among the 27 EU members.
According to European Statistical Office estimates, 13.066 million people were unemployed in the EU in May 2022, with 11.004 million of them in the euro area. The figures reflect monthly declines of 73,000 in the EU and 81,000 in the euro area.
Compared with May 2021, unemployment decreased by 2.515 million in the EU and by 2.165 million in the euro area.
Among the 27 member states, higher unemployment rates were recorded in Spain at 13.1 percent and in Greece at 12.7 percent in April, while Italy stood at 8.1 percent. In contrast, the lowest unemployment was observed in the Czech Republic at 2.5 percent, followed by Poland at 2.7 percent and Germany at 2.8 percent.
For those under 25 years old, the May youth unemployment rate in the euro area was 13.1 percent, up from 13.8 percent in the previous month within the euro area, while the EU rate stood at 13.3 percent, roughly half a point below April’s level.
In absolute terms, youth unemployment in the EU reached 2.467 million in May, with 1.988 million of them in the euro area.
In Spain, May 2022 figures show 3.046 million people unemployed, including 440,000 under 25 years old. The youth unemployment rate in Spain reached 27.1 percent, with Greece at 36.8 percent in April, Sweden at 21.9 percent, Italy around 20.5 percent, and Slovakia near 20.3 percent.